


MURD 201: Exam 3

by Alyssa Blackbourn (CastielAOTL)



Series: MURD 201 [4]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Mystery, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Religious Fanaticism, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 95,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29246439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CastielAOTL/pseuds/Alyssa%20Blackbourn
Summary: Murdoc's class is back in session and ready for round three, and these lessons are brutal. The curve can't save them, and maybe Mac can't, either. Exam three is here; I hope for Riley's sake everyone has studied. PLEASE read A/N; this is the 5th story in this series and the 4th story from me.
Series: MURD 201 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134404
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Lecture 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haven126](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haven126/gifts).



> Hey everybody! I'm back again! I hope everyone's having a lovely quarantine. Anyway, if you're a returning reader, welcome back! If you're new, stop right now, because this story cannot be read without first reading the following:  
> MURD 201: Syllabus by Haven126  
> MURD 201: Exam 1 by me  
> MURD 201: Exam 2 by me  
> MURD 201: Pop Quiz, also by me.  
> Other than that, good to have you here! I hope you enjoy this, and as always, I have to thank Haven126 for her absolutely invaluable help. Seriously, up until the exam, she wrote, like 80-95% of what you're reading. She's a boss and honestly the best.
> 
> Now, without further ado, on with the show!

Riley was fidgeting.

She was self-aware; she knew it was a tell, and she knew what she was telling the other people in the room—particularly the disapproving figure standing in front of them. But somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to care.

She wasn't the one causing the tension.

That blame lay solely on the three men in the room. Mac was standing on the right, valiantly trying to project calm and ease, but the speed with which he was mangling paperclips gave him away. Bozer was finally back in an official capacity, perched a little uncomfortably on the War Room sofa, sitting ramrod straight thanks to the various wraps that were still supporting his healing core muscles. And Jack was basically glued right to her ass, literally standing between her and the door like he thought Murdoc was going to barge in at any moment and try to haul her away by her hair.

Matty stood at the front of the room, silently regarding them. Riley couldn't help the thought that she found them all wanting. It was obvious that their boss was aware of the lack of harmony amongst her agents, and it was just as obvious how much it irritated her.

Finally, Matty spoke. "Riley." The tech tried not to physically react to the sharpness in her tone. "Is the room clean?"

"Yes." That, at least, she could say with one hundred percent certainty. "The protocols are working as designed. We've found and disabled seventeen devices in all, and none of them were on Phoenix property. Well, except the ones we carried in," she clarified. "The ten in the fleet vehicles being used by our security details, the one on Mark Kyser's wheelchair and the spare in his apartment, one in my bag lining, one in Mac's bomber jacket lining, the pair in the soles of Bozer's loafers, and the one in Jack's spare holster."

She had to give the assassin credit; he'd only bugged items he knew they'd take with them to each and every safehouse, and those items had been under relatively tight security the entire time.

Matty gave them all another hard look, and Riley fought not to drop her eyes.

"And you're certain the Phoenix systems have been scrubbed."

That, she was a little less sure about. Maybe eighty percent. "As sure as I can be. Whoever got into our systems, they did it eight months ago by making their software look like one of our own security apps. The code in the software worm and on the physical bugs is sophisticated stuff, it was definitely written by the same guy. So I'm running scans on our systems looking for that signature or anything else even remotely like it on a random cycle, just in case he left himself a back door. In the last two weeks I haven't found any other instances of it."

And sophisticated didn't really cover it. The bugs were downright ingenious. Each had been individually programmed to their schedules, to ensure it was never transmitting when they were in a Phoenix building and the transmission might be detected. They had on-board recording capabilities, and the compression algorithm was truly elegant. They were tiny, light, easy to hide—once she found the one on Kyser's wheelchair, which is where it had to be to get recordings of his voice during his physical therapy, she was able to backwards engineer it and loaded them all down with personal transmission detectors. After that, it had been a simple matter of waiting for the detector to beep, and then stripping the environment down—in some cases down to its boxer shorts—to find the damn things.

And after the elation of finally, _ finally _ getting something actionable, finally being able to throw a wrench in Murdoc's plan, the trail ended almost as soon as it began. She'd never seen this tech before; it was nation-state-level sophisticated, but none of the US intelligence agencies—supposedly—had any record of any devices like it. As for the worm, it had been used to great effect to exfiltrate the intimate details of the drowning of Zoe Kimura abord the R.V. Bancroft, the human trafficking compound where Bozer and Sofía were kidnapped, and even more simple things like remotely activating their smartphone mics so Murdoc could listen in on the duck game and glean Bozer's pastrami recipe. It had been coded to look exactly like the Phoenix VPN security software.

Software she'd upgraded about eight months ago. Software she'd taken off premises to work on after hours in her apartment. Whoever had done all this, he'd gotten onto her rig without her knowing, and he'd done it before Murdoc had swooped into that warehouse the night Jack was shot and Mac almost got char-broiled.

She hadn't brought the worm into the Phoenix, but she'd given this guy everything he needed to disguise it and hide it from them. If he hadn't had that leg up, if he hadn't gotten that copy of her code, she might have found the worm before Matty was taken, before Bozer was taken—

And whoever the hell he was, not only was he good at hiding from her, but her old hacker contacts hadn't turned up anything either. A guy—or girl—this skilled didn't just fall out of the clear blue sky. Murdoc had found and hired him or her somehow. Someone, somewhere had to know who this person was in order to broker deals, advertise their services. The fact that even with her own contacts, she couldn't track this asshole down, was driving her crazy.

It was very clear to her now that Murdoc had an accomplice. Maybe the person Mac had seen pacing in his kitchen the day Murdoc shot him in his own garage. She glanced almost unconsciously at MacGyver, noting that even from her angle, his blond hair was finally able to completely cover the scar that the bullet had dug along his skull.

"I'm sure that our phones are clean," Riley added, when she realized she'd been quiet too long. "I installed versioning software on all of them that does integrity checks eight different ways. I don't think even I could get around it undetected."

Behind her, Jack gave a quiet grunt of approval. "Then it'll stop the Anti-Ri for sure."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Can we not call them the Anti-Ri, please?"

"I'd love to call them by their real name," Matty pressed, and Riley gave her an open 'me too' look.

"I've got all my dark web contacts looking into it, but so far..." She spread her hands, only then realizing how deeply she'd been picking at one of her cuticles. It was bleeding, and she hastily crossed her arms to hide it. They were already concerned about Mac falling apart, she didn't need to give Matty any more reason to suspect that she was just as neurotic.

Besides, she wasn't. She was just...tense. They'd been waiting for literal months for Murdoc to make another move. Long enough that Bozer was actually in the War Room with them, ready to take on an op. She half wished it would just happen already, because the anticipation was probably leeching years off her life.

Matty gave her another hard stare. "Because what I have to say to you all absolutely cannot be communicated to Murdoc. Not if we're going to have any shot at this."

All four of them perked up immediately; even Mac's incessant worrying at his paperclip stilled. "We have a lead?"

Matty's eyes cut to Mac, and after an endless moment, she gave him a single nod and the smallest of smiles. "Yes, Blondie. We have a lead."

She gestured to the screen behind her, where a middle-aged woman's smiling face appeared. "Meet Lara Clayton. Or at least that seems to be her go-to alias these days. We believe she was one of the members of Murdoc's Collective, and like most of the others, she's since fallen out of favor with her ex-employer."

Riley gave the woman a once-over. Her short brown hair was cut in a stylish bob, and the wrinkles around her eyes could have easily been mistaken for laugh lines, instead of hours of squinting down a sniper rifle's scope.

"So she's on the run," Mac murmured, and Matty nodded again.

"Don't let the soccer mom smile fool you. She's implicated in over forty murders, and those are just the ones we know about." Behind Riley, Jack whistled through his bottom teeth. "A CIA team in deep cover was way up north and stumbled across her in a gas station in Jasper."

"Alberta," Mac added quietly. "Canada."

"Right again. She's been seen there for the past three days, probably renting a cabin or another off-the-grid property. She's too smart to stay there long, which is why you'll have to move fast."

On the couch, Bozer shifted a little. "...you're sending...us?"

This time there was no mistaking it; Matty was definitely giving them the stink eye. "Yes, I'm sending you," she confirmed. "You three are going to have a boys’ weekend out. All the hiking, fishing, and camping you can shake a stick at. Find Ms. Clayton and bring her in. At the rate Murdoc has been hunting down her fellow assassins, she needs our protection as much as we need her intel."

"Let me get this straight." Riley didn't even need to turn around to see the look on Jack's face, to know he was waving his hand in the air. "You want us three to backpack around Canada and convince a stone cold assassin she's better off in prison than out in Call of the Wild country."

"I'll personally make sure her prison has a five star Michelin rating if she can help us take Murdoc out of play," Matty shot back. "If we can find her, so can he. Make sure she understands the position she's in."

In front of her, Mac pocketed the paperclip. "Is there any reason to suspect Murdoc knows where she is?" His voice was deceptively calm, but Riley could see the tension thrumming right under the surface.

The director turned her attention back to him. "No, but if I were you, I'd make that assumption anyway. If she knows anything that can help us locate him, silencing her will be Murdoc's first priority."

Awesome. So they were going up against an assassin that had managed to stay one step ahead of Murdoc all this time, and they might also have to deal with the sociopath on top of it. At the very least, if he was in Canada, he couldn't also be in LA. Riley quietly cleared her throat. "And I'm working the op from here, I take it?"

"Yes." Matty's tone brooked no argument. "Our intel indicates she's off the grid, no phone, very little online presence, so your talents are better suited continuing to track down Murdoc's accomplice. I want you where I can keep an eye on you."

Mac very carefully didn't look at her, and a warm, comforting hand settled on Riley's shoulder. She resisted the urge to shrug it off. "Fine with me."

"Good. I'll have secure transport waiting for you three when you touch down, including an armored vehicle. You're wheels up in thirty."

Though it was clearly a dismissal, no one immediately moved. Mac glanced over at Bozer, trying to gauge how he felt about going back into the field, and Boze flashed his friend a bright, not-fooling-anyone smile. Riley knew Boze had to be a little worried—even just pretending to backpack or camp in the Canadian wilderness was going to be uncomfortable, and he'd probably been hoping for a slightly easier mission his first time out since—

And there was no missing the fact that Mac and Jack were once again out of sync. After he checked in with Bozer, Mac turned fully, giving his partner a cordial but guarded look, which Riley was pretty sure Jack was giving him in turn. They were cooperative with one another—they hadn't fought since that day in the hospital as far as Riley knew—but there was definitely still tension between them. From what Simmons and Jada had told them, the fight the pair had while Mac was in the hospital got pretty heated, and neither had given any indication that they wanted to patch things up. Not even when prompted by the rest of them.

Maybe an op would help them settle back in, or at the very least force them to deal with it, Riley thought as the three of them left the War Room and she picked up her laptop. Either way, she wasn't exactly sad that she'd been sidelined. At least with Jack out on the op, she could get a little breathing space, maybe make some headway.

And maybe, just maybe, they'd get another lead.

* * *

It turned out Matty was speaking literally when she said, ‘I want you where I can keep an eye on you.’ Instead of letting her retreat to the lab, it became apparent that Matty expected her to work exclusively in the War Room, and Riley therefore curled up on the couch and irritatedly fished her dangling right bra strap back onto her shoulder. For the third time.

The director carefully didn't look her way, instead choosing to watch the image of the Phoenix jet, now more than halfway to its destination. "Chinese or Italian?"

It took Riley far longer than it should have to translate that. "Chinese or Italian...food?"

"For lunch." There was an undercurrent of humor in Matty's voice, though the director never took her eyes off the screen. "One more skipped meal and you'll have to buy a new wardrobe."

She wanted to argue that she didn't skip meals, that protein bars counted, but after a few seconds, Riley realized she just didn't have it in her to argue anymore. And the director wasn't wrong. She knew why she couldn't stop fidgeting, why her clothes always felt so uncomfortable.

It was because her skin felt so uncomfortable.

"Anything as long as it's not pizza," she finally muttered, and yanked this time on her left bra strap.

"Mmm. I take it Jack's been having skeeball conversations with you."

"Every week." Of course Matty knew that; both her and Jack's details were also forced to go with them, and in some cases Jack had even insisted they also play skeeball and eat the greasy pizza. As it turned out, Jada was a skeeball master, which irritated her partner, Simmons, to no end. Riley was glad to know the ladies could hold their own.

"He's worried about you."

"He should be worried about himself," she retorted, maybe a little sharply, glaring at the innocuous little jet on the big screen. "Was sending them out really such a good idea? Boze is barely back, and—" She cut herself off.

"...and Mac and Jack aren't working well together," Matty finished. "What would you suggest I do about it?"

"Trust me, if I knew how to fix that, I would." And the thought of poor Bozer, all alone with those two, trying to play peacemaker—

Matty took a deep breath, as if considering her next words carefully. "Murdoc crossed a line, with Bozer," she started, and Riley was so shocked she actually looked at the director. Her boss's expression was a cross between steel and sympathy. "He tortured him, Riley. And there was absolutely nothing that Jack, or Mac, or you, or I could have done about it."

Riley carefully unclenched her teeth, and put her eyes back on the screen. It was supposed to be safer territory, but staring at that tiny plane, and imagining the suffocating silence inside of it, just pissed her off more.

"Murdoc snuck into my apartment for weeks and used my own phone to take pictures of me." Even before he'd shot Kyser and kidnapped Matty. And even after Mac figured out how, figured out how to keep Murdoc physically out of her bedroom, he'd still been there. Virtually. Still infecting her phone, still using the mic or the camera whenever he wanted.

Even though she'd started keeping it in a folding case after that, so that the camera was always covered, she hadn't slept well since then. Felt comfortable in her own skin since then.

"I knew that he'd gotten around our network security, Matty. I knew it. If I'd found that worm faster, if I'd—"

"But you didn't." There was more steel there than sympathy, and Riley closed her mouth. Because ultimately, that was the only thing that mattered.

She hadn't. And Murdoc had gotten to Bozer. Had gotten to Mac.

"What you're doing to yourself, what you're blaming yourself for...you are playing his game, Riley. You are doing exactly what you're angry at Mac for doing."

That felt a little like a slap in the face, and Riley focused her glare on her rig. "Thanks for the pep talk, boss."

"Riley, you've taken his eyes and ears. You've put Murdoc at a disadvantage, maybe for the first time since all this started. We have a credible lead. I know you're scared—"

"Do you?" Riley shot back, glaring at her boss. "Do you really? Because I think we all know what's going to happen to me if—"

If they couldn't stop him.

Murdoc's prison comment to Mac. The pictures, and more importantly the setting. The absolute glee as he'd sliced into Bozer, the pure sick pleasure on his face when Boze screamed—

There was no doubt in her mind what was going to happen to her if they couldn't stop him.

And watching Mac and Jack avoid eye contact, avoid even being in the same room with each other, standing beside Jack while they played skeeball, and knowing half his attention was on everyone around them, even with four Phoenix tac members watching their backs—

Jack knew. He never said anything about it, but he knew what would happen if they couldn't stop Murdoc. And she could see in the lines of worry on his face, the tension even when he hugged her, that he didn't believe they were going to get Murdoc before Murdoc got to her.

And she could see that knowledge, that resignation reflected in Matty's eyes. The older woman had put it all together a long time ago. "Riley—"

"They'll be landing in an hour," she interrupted, reasonably steadily, and focused back on her rig. "I need to make sure that armored car you promised them is ready to go."

It was an excuse, and not even a good one, but Matty let her have it. There really was nothing else to say. She knew she was doing exactly what Mac was doing. Withdrawing, burying herself in work because she felt guilty for every single second she wasn't a hundred percent vested in the search for Murdoc. And she knew, on some level, that she and Mac were probably doing it for the same reasons. Because they were afraid of Murdoc, of what he could do to the people they loved. What he could do to them.

But that didn't make one bit of difference to her anger. She'd already fucked up once, hadn't seen what was right in front of her. So had Mac. If they both ended up doing that again—

She couldn't afford to, because it was her ass on the line. And with the three of them out there in the Canadian wilderness, hunting an assassin who didn't want to be found—one that Murdoc had thought was worthy of his Collective—she needed to be on her game. Which meant this conversation with Matty needed to be over.

And maybe Webber realized that too, because she didn't press her again. She did, however, order Chinese. And Riley did have to admit—only to herself—that it actually tasted okay, and she felt slightly better after she'd eaten.

Of course, once the boys landed, her stomach tightened right back up again.

“Okay, mic check one-two,” Jack’s voice came over coms with a lighthearted drawl that made Riley crack a tiny smile in spite of herself. “Can you hear me now, Riles?”

Riley scoffed. “Yeah, I can hear you, Jack. Button cam looks good, too.”

“We’ve got the car,” Mac chimed in, sounding a bit more stiff than his partner, although it seemed as though both were doing their best to make her feel a little better. It wasn’t quite working, but she appreciated the effort. “Gonna head into town, see what we can find.”

“Where the hell are we gonna start?” Bozer chimed in with a doubtful huff.

“Well, we know she’s not living in town, otherwise we would have found some kind of trace of her, right, Riles?” Jack asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the car.

“Right,” Riley confirmed. “I’ve looked through everything I can digitally access, and there’s no evidence of her living in Peace River itself.”

“If I were her, and I had Murdoc on my ass, I’d be as off the grid as I could get, out in the woods somewhere,” Bozer added.

“I figured as much,” Matty nodded. “You three have some hiking equipment in the back of your car, but it’s just the basics.”

“Let’s start with the hardware stores in the area,” Mac suggested. “She has to be getting supplies from somewhere. Plus, I could use a few things, myself.”

Jack just grunted in agreement, and Riley watched as their GPS marker made its way into the town proper. There was a tense silence in the car, and the tension was spilling over into the War Room. Riley was actually relieved when they finally arrived at the hardware store—well, actually, Hector’s Haven sold a bit of everything, from hardware to auto parts to camping and survival gear.

_ Mac and Jack’s dream store _ , Riley thought to herself as her companions hopped out of the car and headed inside. They split up, gathering everything they might need in addition to what they would find in a standard pack, and remained pretty silent, prompting Riley to absently shift gears and keep running down her dwindling digital leads. It wasn’t until she heard Mac utter a quiet “Hmm.” that she finally checked back in.

“What is it, Blondie?” Matty asked.

“I mean, it might be nothing,” Mac mumbled quietly, “but the place seems to be sold out of a few...questionable things.”

“Meaning?” Jack pressed, his voice just a bit abrasive, making Riley’s jaw tighten.

Mac was quiet for a beat before he spoke, and his face was tense in the view of Jack’s button cam. “Boze, do me a favor, and go see if any of the toilet bowl cleaners are sold out.”

“What are you thinking, Mac?” Riley asked.

“Well, they’re out of acetone, peroxide, Tarn-X tarnish remover, and all the jewelry cleaners. If I’m right, then they might also be...” he trailed off, likely going to check a different part of the store, “yeah, they’re almost out of Crisco.”

“All of the flushable tablets are sold out,” Bozer reported. Jack made a scoffing sound.

“Okay, Crisco and toilet bowl cleaner I get—a town fish fry can clean you out, but—”

“But everyone in town’s cleaning their jewelry and silver, too?” Boze chimed in. “Pretty fancy fish fry.”

“Mac, if you look at that list, what do you think someone’s making?” Matty asked.

“Poisons and/or explosives,” Mac replied immediately. “Riley, can you check when the tarnish remover was bought out?”

“Yeah, but I doubt she used a credit card,” Riley reminded them.

“They have cameras in the store,” Jack reported.

“Closed circuit system,” the analyst countered. “I’ll need you guys to get me in.”

Mac and Jack looked at each other, then at Bozer, then wordlessly nodded. Riley caught a glimpse of Boze walking off in Jack’s button cam before the pair flagged down the worker behind the counter. As the pair began talking, asking some questions like they were trying to get a recommendation, Riley watched over the worker’s shoulder as Bozer slipped behind the counter and plugged a USB into the computer. In seconds, the analyst had full access to their system.

“Okay,” Riley sighed. “Looks like the tarnish remover was bought two days ago in cash. Going to the camera feed now...”

Riley quickly navigated to the proper timestamp, and sure enough, there she was, handing over several bills to pay for the large haul she’d amassed. The analyst and her boss both watched as she left the store and Riley quickly switched to the view of the parking lot.

“Got her license plate,” she reported, watching Lara Clayton load her bags into the back of her black pickup truck with a notable dent in the rear passenger side door. “Photo coming to your phones now.”

“You’re the best, Riley,” Bozer muttered before removing the USB and quickly walking back out into the store, pretending to look at the nearby sunglasses. Mac and Jack finished their conversation with the worker and shook his hand before wandering a bit deeper into the store.

As the three of them gathered the remaining few things they'd need before they trekked out into the wilderness, Riley got to work tracking that truck. Older model, no lojack or built in GPS, but luckily the town seemed to have a problem with people running four way stops, because they had a higher than average collection of intersection cameras, and all with the same administrator password.

"Guys, I think I found it," she reported after about fifteen minutes. "I followed the truck about fifteen miles north, and there's only a couple structures out there. She's gotta be in one of them."

"Great job, Riles." Jack put a little effort into making it sound extra sincere, and she silently shook her head at him in fond exasperation.

"Yeah, well, don't thank me yet. All four are on the top of a pretty big hill, all along a cliff with a great view of the valley. Including the one and only access road."

"Which means she'll see you coming a mile away," Matty murmured, studying the map Riley had pulled up.

"Four miles, actually." Riley helpfully highlighted the route. "You'll have to ditch the vehicle and hike up the rest of the way."

"Oh, yay," Bozer grumbled, less than enthusiastic.

"Sorry, Boze," Riley apologized sheepishly. "Wish I had a better answer for you. I'll check satellites, see if I can't get you guys a better idea of where you're going."

Her three companions grumbled in agreement as Riley typed away on her keyboard. By the time Mac, Jack, and Boze had begun their trek into the wilderness, she had a pretty good idea of where they were headed.

"Slightly good news, guys," she reported. "I'm about ninety-five percent sure she's in the cabin closest to you guys, so you'll only have to go four miles instead of six."

"Yippee," Bozer still didn't exactly sound thrilled.

"You could wait in the car, if you want," Mac suggested in a voice that indicated that it wasn't a real offer, that he knew Bozer wouldn't want to do that. He was right.

"Oh, yeah," their newly-recovered friend scoffed sarcastically. "Let me, a black man, just go wander off by myself in the middle of the woods where at least one psychotic killer is hiding! Great idea, Mac."

Mac, Jack, and Riley all chuckled, and even Matty cracked a smile. The team then lapsed into only-mildly-uncomfortable silence while the boys hiked their way towards their destination. With nothing for her to do, Riley switched her attention back to her Murdoc leads. They were just as grim and disconcerting as listening to Bozer try to get Mac and Jack talking.

She had a few scripts hitting all her favorite dark web haunts, looking for samples of software with the same signature as the worm. Signature was a very good word for it, because despite the fact that they all used the same alphabet, each coder's work was recognizably different from the others. The way in which a developer would conceive of the operation to be done, what order services would be stopped and started in, the code injection string—it was as unique as a fingerprint. You could fake someone else's style, if the ask was small enough, but once you passed twenty lines of code, it got too complicated for all but the very best of forgers.

Which was why she was absolutely sure that the few folks she'd found so far offering up their 'services' in this particular area of surveillance were, as Boze would say, not the droid she was looking for.

**Artemis why u stompn around?**

Riley toggled over to one of the three chat agents she had running, doing a quick confirm by exchanging encryption keys before replying. After all, she knew she was making a lot of noise; the time to be subtle was over. If she couldn't find this person on her own, her best option was to crowdsource it and risk tipping the guy or gal off.

Even if they went underground, at least she'd get a damn name.

**Lookn 4 a guy**

It was kind of a lead-on; she wasn't above flirting to get what she needed, and whatever gender B4ndzz was, he or she was always willing to play along.

**Lol no j/k**

**Bitty bugz rite?**

**Sort of.**

**Hard n soft** , Riley sent back, and the chat window went idle for a few moments.

**Still an angel?**

Riley smirked, just a little, before she typed back.  **Nvr but I fly like 1**

"Friend of yours?" Matty inquired dryly, and Riley glanced up to find her boss had snuck up and was watching the screen over her shoulder.

Riley made sure their coms were muted. "Yeah. B4ndzz has been around a while, hit the web about the same time as Artemis37. They're one of my pixel people." At her boss's unimpressed look, Riley elaborated. "A pixel person is a person you've never met physically, just online. We used to try to hack each other, figure out who the other was, but after I got arrested B4ndzz got caught up in another squad." Riley gestured to the window. "The bitty bugs refer to the hardware and software varieties, and asking if I'm an angel means am I still in the LA area."

"So this hacker knows you live in LA?" Matty's unimpressed look was moving towards disapproving.

Riley offered the other woman a one-shouldered shrug. "General geographical data isn't too dangerous, I mean it's not like I chat with a lot of people who can reroute nukes."

"Well that makes me feel so much better." Matty's tone indicated otherwise. "How many of your dark web contacts have you reached out to?"

Riley sighed. "Most of them. There's no way this guy just appeared, even if you get a new handle you came from somewhere. The code is just too sophisticated, so whoever wrote this worm for Murdoc, they've had to have pulled jobs before this one. I tried being subtle, but it's not getting me anywhere, so..."

"So now you're going Godzilla on Tokyo," Matty finished, and Riley nodded.

The chat window became active again.  **I know a guy. Qtr gets you a referral**

Riley actually snorted. "A quarter? Who do you think you're talking to here?" However, she typed  **Orly** and then let the chat window go idle again.

"A quarter? A quarter of what?"

"A bitcoin," Riley told her boss. "B4ndzz is offering to introduce me, but wants a quarter of a bitcoin up front. Which I am totally desperate enough to do, by the way."

Matty looked off into space a moment. "Aren't bitcoin up to almost nine grand these days?"

"Yeah. And honestly, if it's the real deal it'd be worth a couple thousand dollars." Riley glanced back up at the big screen, watching three GPS dots making their way through the woods.

"You're...waiting for the price to come down?" Matty surmised, and Riley frowned.

"That, and a sample of the goods. There are a lot of people who make good bitcoin writing surveillance apps for phones and webcam systems. If I'd gone darkside, I would have made a steady living," she added quietly, still staring at the big screen. Where the GPS dots didn't seem to be moving. "...what are they doing...?"

Riley had muted her and Matty's end of coms, but not the boys, and they were all silent. At Matty's nod, Riley took them off mute.

"Mac, Jack, what's wrong?"

While they could hear a few sounds of breathing. The coms were in their ears, not on their throats, so a soft whisper wouldn't be that useful. Someone, however, tapped the com in their ear twice.

_ Stand by. _

"Riley, do we have satellite yet?"

She'd already anticipated the question. "No, not yet. And the first one we get won't have infrared capability, so all we'll see is the tops of trees. That forest is designated as a 'state natural area', so no logging, no hunting. That's why there's only one road through."

The GPS dots eventually did move, though; they grouped closer together, and then all apparently took the same route around something, though what she couldn't tell. Once they were far enough from whatever it was, Jack finally responded.

"She might be off the grid, but she is definitely a fan of tech." His voice was still low, as if he was afraid of being overheard. "We got battery powered wildlife cameras out here, and they focus on motion."

Great. "Well, they probably aren't operating on bluetooth; you're still two miles out from that cabin." Riley brought up a different kind of map, looking for the nearest cellular tower. "Uh, give me a minute, let me see if they're on 3G."

"3G? Like, cell phones from the nineties?"

Riley couldn't help a little smile at Bozer's doubt. "Yeah. Slow but it still exists. 3 and 4G are getting phased out, but because this tower is older..." Riley finally managed to make contact with the cellular tower, and confirmed there were—

"Wow. There are forty-two 3G devices out there."

"Riles..." Jack's drawl was back. "Unless she plans to live here permanent, that seems like overkill."

"Pretty sure everyone of Murdoc's little collective is overkill," Bozer chimed in.

"Riley, is there any way for you to get manufacturer information from those devices?" Mac was all business. "Jack's right, she can't have set all of them up. My guess is, some are legitimately state-owned wildlife cameras, and if you can map them for us—"

"Then you'd know which ones to avoid," Riley finished. "Hang on."

"Hey." Jack's voice was a little sharper, and Riley saw shaky footage of Mac, turning to give his partner a faintly annoyed look. "Hold up, hoss. I spotted the camera, I'll take the lead."

"Yes, but now that we know what to look for—" Mac cut himself off abruptly. Riley glanced at Matty, who had her lips pressed into a thin line.

After a couple beats, Mac stepped to the side, and extended an arm. "After you."

"Why thank you." The sarcasm was barely veiled, which meant either the camera had been a closer call than it looked on their little screen, or the last mile and a half of nature walk hadn't calmed either of them down.

Matty nodded back at the laptop, and Riley frowned and got back to work. And Mac wasn't wrong. Thirty-six of the cameras were the same brand—their MAC addresses were in numerical order. The other six were all over the place.

"Okay, good news and bad news. Good news—looks like she only put out half a dozen. Bad news—"

"You can't figure out which six it is."

"Give that man a prize," she murmured, studying the map. "What I can do is use them as my eyes."

"So...you could figure out where they are by what landmarks they see?" Bozer's voice turned hopeful.

Riley almost smiled. Bozer's total faith in her was astounding, and actually more reassuring than she'd thought it would be. "Yeah, Boze. They're near trees."

They heard someone scoff, and Jack's button cam caught that he'd turned to glance behind him, where Bozer was silently mimicking Riley's announcement and Mac was giving his best friend a small—but genuine looking—smirk.

She wished they weren't making him work so hard. Even as Jack turned, Riley saw Mac's arm suddenly shoot out, and they heard Bozer give a little grunt. Probably slipped on something.

"What I can do," Riley added dryly, "is watch them, and the second I see motion, if it's you I can tell you to stop. And if it's not you-"

"You can give us a head's up. Sweet."

Riley moved the six windows up onto the main screen, and Matty studied the images closely—probably trying to do what Bozer had wanted, which was find some landmarks that could help them. Riley left her to it, and toggled back to her chat window, which was still idle.

**Ffs u gonna pony up goodz r what**

It didn't take B4ndzz long to respond to that.  **Keep ur pants on o wait**

As if.  **That's what she said** , Riley typed back, and then deliberately focused back on the op. She'd been let down too many times to get her hopes up, but B4ndzz was the real deal—and probably wouldn't screw her out of a couple grand for a tip.

Maybe a few hundred. At this point Riley would use her own scratch.

"Jack, stop!" Matty was using her command tone, and on his button cam, Riley saw him immediately freeze. One of the other cameras was panning, had caught the motion, and Riley quickly remoted it and panned it away. It showed that it had been put into 'Manual' mode, and as soon as she had it looking more than a hundred degrees from where it had picked up Jack, she put it back on 'Automatic.'

"Okay, Jack, you're good, just go behind it," she coached, and they watched Jack do as instructed.

It happened twice more—apparently Miss Clayton had anticipated that the most likely path for hikers was going to be the one Riley had mapped out—but she and Matty were able to get the three Phoenix agents within one hundred yards of the cabin in question. It was more of a small lodge, with a large main room that included a fireplace—working, according to the smoke rising from it—as well as three small bedrooms and a generous kitchen. It was built for the cold as well as the view, so there were skylights and the larger windows were all facing the cliff and the valley. It actually didn't look like a half bad spot to lay low.

Except for the resident assassin, of course.

"Can't get a visual," Mac murmured, and Jack's cam caught him tucked behind a couple saplings, peering through his hiking binoculars. "Most of the windows back here are curtained off."

"Riley, can you get me infrared yet?"

She gave her boss a headshake. "Not for another thirteen minutes. And with the fireplace going, I'm not sure how useful it would be."

"At the very least it'd tell us if there's anyone on the far side of the house," Jack grumbled. "I don't wanna knock on the door, but if we've got the wrong place, I don't wanna scare the Hendersons either."

There was a brief pause. "Really, Jack? Harry and the Hendersons?"

Riley could almost see the expression on Jack's face, simply through his voice. "Bozer, I am tellin' you, yeti are real and if we were in Bigfoot country, I wouldn't just be packin' this pea shooter."

"Let's worry about Bigfoot later and focus on getting eyes inside that cabin," Mac suggested tersely. "We don't want to make any noise, in case we've got the wrong place."

Jack exhaled loudly through his nose. "Okay, brainiac, what's the plan?"

"I'm—" Mac cut himself off again. "...actually...maybe we  _ do _ want to make noise."

"Come again?" That, thankfully, came from Bozer, and was more of an invitation to continue than criticism. It helped Mac take the edge off his tone.

"We want to know who's in there, right? Let's make them come out to us."

"Mac, don't forget who you might be dealing with," Matty cautioned. "I don't like the idea of scaring a totally innocent renter either, but there could be a trained killer in there."

Motion towards the bottom of the big screen caught her eye, and Riley glanced at one of the six camera feeds. What she saw almost stopped her heart.

"She's not in the cabin—she's coming up the trail behind you!" And any idea that she was unaware of their presence crumbled; she had a military-style rifle up against her shoulder, and as she passed under the camera, Riley could see the grip of a gun tucked into the back of her jeans.

"Mac, Boze, go in the front and wait for her—"

"Jack!" It was a hiss, but Jack's button cam showed that he was already on the move.

* * *

Mac watched Jack dart off to the north, standard flanking tactic, and he mentally swore, grabbing Boze's shoulder and guiding him towards the south. Wilt tripped again, leaving a very obvious mark in the softer dirt near the cabin, and Mac mentally added that to the list of problems.

Although—

"Boze, here's what I need you to do. Make a very obvious trail towards that dry creek bed we passed a quarter mile ago. Forget everything you ever learned about good hiking and forestry practice—"

But Bozer was already nodding. "Break all the twigs, got it. What about you? We doin' this Ewok style?"

A short burst of rapid fire interrupted him, and Mac froze as he heard Jack swear under his breath.

"Sitrep!" Matty demanded, and Mac hesitated, glancing at Bozer. When Jack didn't come back after a second, then two, they both wordlessly dashed in Jack's general direction.

"Hey there, Lara," Mac heard Jack loud and clear over coms. She replied with another volley of automatic fire.

So much for being quiet. Mac motioned silently for Bozer to stay back, then advanced as soundlessly as he could, using the many Pinus banksiana—colloquially known as 'Jack Pines,' which was irritatingly fitting—as cover.

The next time Jack spoke, Mac could hear both his actual voice and the echo in his comm. "How about before you blow my head off, you hear me out?"

"Whoever you are, whatever your offer is, I don't care," Lara snapped, and her words were followed by another short burst of gunfire.

Mac couldn't help a grimace as he darted closer, looking for telltale tracks in the soft dirt, disturbed needles, anything that might give him an indication of what path she'd taken to get to Jack.

"Now come on, if we wanted to fight, we'd'a brought a small army, or better yet just leaked your location," Jack called out, still sounding friendly and casual. "Gimme two minutes, and I betcha I can change your mind."

"Yeah? Well I betcha you can't. You people can't stay ahead of Murdoc for any length of time; I've been at it for over a year!"

"You people?!" Even through coms he managed to sound offended.

"Jack, keep her talking," Matty ordered over coms. "Blondie, get him out of there."

_ I'm trying _ , he wanted to growl, but he knew any noise he made now meant he'd have the same problem Jack did—and he didn't like his odds of outrunning bullets. Besides the pine trees, there was some old growth still intact, which gave him height, it gave him potential leverage, if he could lead her to a specific spot he could probably rig up—

"Listen up, Clayton," Jack tried, but whatever he said next was chewed up by automatic fire. Mac was still a good twenty yards away, but he clearly heard her exchange the weapon's magazine for a fresh one. Whatever cover Jack had found, she had to be chewing it up fast.

He didn't have time for clever traps. Mac hesitated, then picked up a fist-sized rock and chucked it in the direction of the weapons fire.

"I see you brought a friend," Lara almost sounded amused as the rock thudded to the ground, missing her entirely. "Whomever they are, they can't aim for shit."

"Boze, I need you to make a little noise," Mac murmured softly over coms, and his best friend stepped up in the most Bozer-like thing he'd done since Murdoc's cooking show.

"If he was tryin'a hit ya, trust me, you'd be in orbit." It sounded like Bozer was literally yelling through cupped hands. "Look, we just wanna talk."

"Oh, so rock-boy was MacGyver. Brought a knife to a gun fight, eh?" She was no longer close enough to Jack to be heard over coms, but Mac could hear her clearly; she'd obviously turned in his direction. He backed off quickly, making just enough noise to be noticed, and scanned his immediate surroundings one more time. Plenty of small, rocky ledges nearby. Any one could be useful for cover—that was probably what Jack was using, and why he hadn't returned fire.

Once he got her off Jack, that flanking maneuver he'd tried earlier would work.

When the automatic fire kicked up again Mac hit the deck, but nothing around him exploded. He didn't feel a thing—until Jack yelped in his ear.

"—she didn't take the bait. Get outta there, Boze; she's headed right for you—"

"For me?!" The bravado that had been in his voice earlier evaporated like Mac's breath, steaming in the air as he abruptly changed course. "Are you freakin' kidding me right now?!"

Mac sprinted back towards the cabin, barely caring about cover, following the impression of motion skimming parallel with him, even as a few rounds of semi-automatic fire—Jack—struck a tree nearby.

"She knows Mac's not carrying! He's not a threat—"

"Didn't I say a black man runnin' through these woods was a bad idea?! I said that! I know I said it!" The griping sounded slightly out of breath as Bozer ran for his life.

But he wasn't a hundred percent yet, and even when he was Mac could beat him flat-footed. The smoke from the cabin's chimney marked its location even through the taller trees, and Mac adjusted his course about fifteen degrees to his right.

Another burst of automatic fire, and this time it was Bozer who yelped, followed by the sounds of a body hitting the ground.

"Bozer!" It was Riley, this time, not Matty, and Mac burst through the scrub pines on a ridge about five feet above where Bozer had fallen. It looked like it had been voluntary; he had some grass on his snazzy royal blue North Face jacket, and had just pulled himself back up into a crouch, but she'd cleared the treeline by the cabin and had the rifle raised—this time she was taking aim.

Mac threw himself off the ridge with his left arm outstretched, hitting the rifle a hair's breadth before his shoulder crashed into hers. Another burst of automatic fire, and then she was cushioning his impact with the ground.

Unfortunately, he simply had too much forward momentum, and she used it to her full advantage. The assassin agreeably tumbled in the same direction, and Mac was forced to tuck his head and roll off her to avoid breaking his arm. He did manage to keep his left hand on the rifle, however, and tore it away from her. He came up on his feet, with the rifle's barrel still secure in his left hand, and found that Lara Clayton had also recovered her feet. Her right hand was just moving away from her waist, and Mac caught a flash of silver even as Bozer yelled.

"Knife!"

She flung it underhand, and it was more luck than skill that had Mac moving, batting the blade aside like Lou Gehrig with the bases loaded. She'd counted on it, charging him, and with his left arm crossed in front of his chest he was unable to defend. Mac let go of the rifle and met her halfway, checking his left shoulder hard into her breastbone. She had more momentum but he had her beat in the weight department, and his right hand was able to catch hers, in the midst of an upward strike that would have landed under his ribs and ended with an inch of steel buried in his heart.

Mac locked her wrist and spun her, forcing her onto one knee, and applied pressure until she dropped the second blade. The assassin was winded from the chest strike, and it gave Mac just enough time to get eyes on his best friend, wild-eyed but standing just a few yards away. There was no blood on his blue jacket.

Bozer was okay.

"Dude!" His voice was a little strangled. "Are you alright?!"

Mac gave him a confident smirk as he got control of Ms. Clayton's left arm and dragged her to her feet. She tried to bridgestomp him but his hiking shoes took the brunt of the impact, and he shook her a little.

"I don't want to hurt you; we just want to talk." At her derisive snort, he aimed that smirk at the back of her head. "And what was that quip about bringing a knife to a gun fight?"

She turned her head a little, trying to catch him in her peripheral vision even as Jack crashed into the clearing. "I like to keep my options open."

"Good to know." Mac held the assassin tightly as Jack exchanged his pistol for a pair of handcuffs—metal, not their usual ziptie restraints. Mac silently agreed; he had a feeling she knew how to defeat both, and he didn't take his hands off her as Jack approached.

"What the hell was that?" Jack demanded under his breath, applying the handcuffs tightly, and once Mac was a hundred percent sure he had control of the assassin, he moved in front of her to pat her down for any additional weapons.

"It's a tactic cougars use in environments like this to take down prey," Mac replied lightly, not missing the smirk on Lara's face as he relieved her of two more throwing blades and a syringe of something translucent and light pink.

"'Course it is," Jack grumbled, not looking at him and instead turning to glance over at Bozer, who was clumsily making his way towards them. "You okay, Boze?"

"Fine," their friend assured him. "Not like she hit me."

Lara chuckled slightly, the sound oddly venomous, and Mac saw her grimace slightly when Jack tightened his grip on her arm. Then the former Delta almost reluctantly turned his attention to his partner, his mouth a thin line.

"You okay?" he asked, looking like he was trying to sound like he cared. Mac nodded wordlessly, his jaw tight.

"Trouble in paradise, you two?" Lara asked innocently, earning a glare from both Mac and Jack. "Murdoc always talked like you were the Hardy Boys, but I sense some tension, here. You know, I was a marriage counselor, once upon a time; if you got something you need to work out, I’d be happy to lend a hand."

“How about you keep your commentary to yourself and start answering a few questions?” Jack suggested with a frown, pushing the woman ahead of him towards her cabin. Mac first walked over to Bozer, helping him brush debris off of his jacket before they both followed. Once inside, Jack grabbed a chair from the kitchen table, pushed it into the living room, spun it around, and plopped the assassin into it. Without a word, Mac walked around behind the chair while Jack stayed in front of it, watching her hands, making sure she didn’t try anything. Bozer hovered somewhere in between them, keeping his distance and trying not to show how tired he really was.

“Now,” Jack sighed, folding his arms and offering up a smirk. “We all want the same thing, here, Lara. We all want Murdoc off the board. So why don’t we help each other out?”

“We tried to help you do that,” Lara shot back. “We handed the bastard over to you on a silver platter, and you  _ lost _ him. Everything after that was your fault, not ours. So why should I even bother helping you again?”

Mac’s jaw tightened; Drew had made much the same point in the warehouse. The blond man shook his head quickly, trying to stop himself from falling down that rabbit hole, as Jack’s smirk became a smile and he stepped a bit closer to their prisoner, leaning in.

“Oh, honey, I’m not aiming to put him in that kind of box this time,” he whispered. His voice wasn’t loud enough to be picked up by coms, and since Jack was the one wearing the button cam, no one was going to be reading his lips, either. Mac let his breath out through his nose, giving his partner a look as he straightened up and stepped back. In the chair, Lara laughed.

“No offense, Dalton, but a lot of people have tried that before, too,” she informed him. “I don’t see why you’d be so different.”

“Whether I am or not, we’re your best bet at getting out from under this any time soon,” Jack growled as Mac flicked his eyes to Bozer and jerked his head, calling him over. Bozer made his way around Lara’s chair to his best friend’s side, and Mac indicated the assassin’s hands. The still-healing agent nodded, taking over Mac’s diligent watching of their captive’s hands, as Mac himself began to look around the cabin.

“Oh please,” Lara scoffed. “You just want to put me in jail.”

“You’re practically already in jail,” Jack chuckled, hardly paying his partner any mind. “You haven’t been in one spot for more than a month since Murdoc got out. And frankly, sweetheart, we already gotchu; whether or not you go to jail is not the question. The question is how easy you make it on yourself.”

As the two of them went back and forth, Mac took in their surroundings. All of the windows except for the ones looking over the ridge to the access road were covered with blackout curtains. There were two crudely set-up reflux reactions running, one on the stove—which had all but one electric burner removed—and one in the fireplace. Both had been transformed into makeshift fume hoods, venting the harmful byproducts of whatever reaction she was trying to achieve out into the open air. She was running an improvised condenser in one of the two sinks, distilling something pale pink into a Pyrex cup. Pulling the syringe he'd found on her from his pocket, he found that, at least visually, the two liquids matched.

The living room looked like where she'd decided to store her completed products—glass vials and jars were neatly lined up in cardboard boxes on and below the coffee table. Liquids and powders of various colors and textures filled them.

"You've certainly been busy," Mac noted, pulling Lara's attention as she looked over her shoulder at him. "Gotta be honest—it's kind of an impressive setup."

Lara offered a halfhearted shrug. "Girl's gotta make a living somehow."

"Yeah, being on the run from a deranged sociopath has gotta be expensive," Bozer scoffed, and Lara responded with an amused chuckle.

"Look, Lara," Jack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "The fact is, you're already caught. You help us, you make your life easier, and whether we catch him or not makes no difference to you. Clearly, if you've managed to impress Mac, you're a smart woman; I'd make the smart play if I were you."

"That was nice of you, Jack," Bozer mumbled, just loud enough for them to hear over coms, seeming surprised to hear the former Delta pay his partner a compliment. Jack shot him a look that told him not to push it, and Mac's jaw tightened as he looked out the window over the ridge.

For several seconds, Lara didn't reply, grinding her teeth with a sour expression on her face. It seemed to take hours for the seconds to pass, but Jack wouldn't break the silence. Mac busied himself examining their captive's stock, reading the chemical reactions hastily scrawled on the plexiglas cover that sealed off the fireplace. Finally, the assassin let out a heavy breath.

"What did you have in mind?"

Mac looked at her in shock for a second, watching his partner give a triumphant smirk and Bozer turn to give him a hopeful look. The former Delta opened his mouth to speak, and then several things happened at once.

He caught the flash out of the corner of his eye, from somewhere across from the cabin, but by the time it registered, Lara was dead, flopped on the floor beside her chair. The side of her head had exploded outwards, spattering blood, brain matter, and skull shards on the kitchen floor. Mac stared, frozen in shock, eyes locked on Lara’s now-lifeless body and suddenly finding it impossible to distinguish from Annie’s. He could hear Jack and Bozer’s voices, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. It wasn’t until more bullets started tearing through the room, shattering the windows, striking the floor next to their feet, and destroying several containers of poisons and explosives that he blinked himself back to reality, but even then, he was frozen. Jack finally grabbed Mac’s arm and yanked him down when he was slow to duck, and the three of them took cover behind the kitchen counter. Then a thought seemed to strike both Mac and Jack simultaneously.

This cabin was full of poisons and explosives. Those poisons and explosives—as well as the raw materials to make them—were being sprayed all over their general vicinity by the gunfire. And there was at least one open heat source in the immediate area—the stove.

“Go, go, go!” Mac shouted urgently, shoving Bozer ahead of him towards the door. Jack reached back and grabbed their teammate’s arm, pulling him up in the direction of the door. The former Delta led the way, then Bozer, and then Mac.

Their exit was impeccably timed.

Mac had barely taken two running strides away from the front porch before the explosion threw him to the ground. He was dazed for a few seconds, and he could hear Riley and Matty shouting in his ear, but he couldn’t quite catch his breath.

In seconds, Jack was on his feet, fury on his face, and he surveyed the area, trying to figure out where the shots had come from. Mac tried to push himself upright, and it took him a moment to realize that Jack was talking to him.

"Did you see the shot, Mac; yes or no?" His partner demanded angrily. Mac nodded, dazed and writhing in the grass.

"Other side...of the ridge," he gasped out, feeling his chest start to tighten. Beside him, Bozer was groaning. "Jack, stop..."

The older man wasn't listening, instead storming in that direction. But his steps were unsteady, and he was stumbling.

They had to get away from the cabin. It was spewing poison all over them as it burned. If they didn't move, they would die.

"Jack, wait!" Mac called after his furious partner, pushing himself to his knees and trying to pull Bozer—who was coughing and wheezing on the ground, some blood coming from a cut in his leg—away from the area, but he was trembling, and couldn't seem to get a good grip on his friend, or even get all the way to his feet. "Jack...please..."

It was getting harder to keep his eyes open, but when he looked up, he saw his partner pivot in the dirt, opening his mouth to yell only for a look of horror to cross his face. Jack started for them, moving quickly and urgently, but whatever adrenaline had been keeping him going was failing him, and he was soon brought to his knees, coughing and sweating and trembling. Mac could hear Matty and Riley trying to get them to answer, but he couldn't speak. He collapsed fully into the grass on his back, wheezing in desperate breaths as his eyes burned, and all the while he was being dragged towards unconsciousness.

If he passed out there, he was dead.

Mac shifted onto his stomach, trying one more time to get to the treeline, hooking his arm under Bozer's to try and drag him along, but he barely made it two feet before his body gave out, and his mind was finally pulled into the waiting darkness.

* * *

Riley didn't manage to get infrared until they'd actually entered the cabin.

Matty stayed quiet, letting Jack lead the conversation however he pleased, and Riley tried to filter out some of the excess static from the image. There were definitely two large heat sources, one was obviously the fireplace from the way the smoke was registering as a filmy vapor of multiple colors, trailing vaguely to the west. The other she figured had to be a kitchen stove, it was perfectly round, and she toggled off the screen to see if she could make any more headway on a floor plan, now that the fighting was over.

Jack didn't seem to be hurt, hadn't made a sound after that yelp, but it had still scared her. Just as much as the sound of Bozer hitting the ground. They said they were fine, but just having them on screen—even as little multicolored lumps—was reassuring.

Riley reset her brain to the Alberta Public Records website, but a blinking icon drew her attention back to her dark web chat window.

**Sent the goodz pay up**

Sure enough, one of the accounts associated with Artemis37 had a new email. Sender information was encrypted, no subject line, and one attachment. She transferred the attachment to a virtual machine, just in case this was a prank, and then opened the file—text only—in a compiler. Then she ran her signature analysis tool.

She had enough time to finish accessing the public records office—and they did indeed have the floor plans—and Riley overlaid them on the infrared image. Sure enough, that second heat signature was indeed the kitchen, and not some perfectly round accomplice.

It looked like the Mac dot and the Bozer dot swapped positions, and Riley toggled back to her compiler.

Where her signature program indicated a match.

Riley stared at it a few seconds before it actually registered. A signature match meant the code sample was the same style as the worm. A signature match meant that she'd found the guy.

Or rather, B4ndzz had.

"I found him," Riley murmured aloud, still not feeling much of anything. No adrenaline, no excitement. And Matty responded in kind.

"Found who?"

"I...the author of the worm." Even saying it out loud didn't trigger any kind of emotional response. "I found a match."

Matty's head jerked around to stare at her, and only then did her brain finally seem to click and come alive.

Riley broadcast the windows up on the screen, overlaying one corner of the satellite image. She typed quickly.

**Not it**

Then she waited a breath.

Matty was squinting at the screen. "Are you really trying to talk this person down—"

"If I'm too eager it sends up flags," Riley interrupted her quickly, then checked to make sure they were muted, and not about to interrupt Jack's interrogation. Then she typed again.

**But worth a meet. Give ya a buck**

Over coms came the very distinct sound of glass breaking.

Riley's eyes flew back up to the satellite image, which showed one shape on their side, lying down, and three more scrambling around the room. Glass was continuing to shatter, which could only mean—

"Get down!"

"What the hell—" Boze cut himself off with a yelp.

"Boze, get down! Mac!" Jack was shouting to be heard over the cacophony.

Matty's voice was barely more controlled. "Riley—"

"On it—" She panned the satellite zoom out, twice just to make sure, waiting impatiently for the image to render. They were under fire, but now that she had infrared, she should be able to at least tell from which direction and how many shooters—

Riley opened another window and sent a priority 9-1-1 request. Law enforcement and paramedics, straight to the cabin.

"Go, go, go!" It was Mac's voice, and it was urgent. Riley looked back up in time to see three of the four dots sprinting for an exit, before that entire section of the screens was eaten in a bright yellow flare.

Matty, who was on her feet, didn't move, waiting impatiently for the heat flare to dissipate but they clearly heard multiple voices cry out. Even while the infrared was whited out, Riley could hear breathing, hear bodies hitting the ground. Could hear groaning.

And coughing.

"—goddammit, did anyone—see where it came from?" That was undoubtedly Jack, and the sheer anger in his voice counterintuitively relaxed her a little. If he was that pissed off, he was probably okay.

"Jack, sitrep!" Matty barked.

He didn't reply—at least not to her. "Did you see the shot, Mac; yes or no?"

Matty opened her mouth but Mac interrupted her, with a wheeze that Riley didn't like one bit. "Other side...of the ridge." Someone groaned, it sounded like Bozer, and Mac started coughing. "Jack, stop..."

The poisons. In the house. The explosion must have aerosolized them.

"Jack, leave the shooters to us," the director commanded sharply. "Get out of there!"

Riley focused on the ridges, unsure which one Mac meant. The valley was a true valley, hell, it could have been an ancient volcano caldera for all she knew. There were ridges on both sides of the one their assassin—their now-dead assassin, Riley surmised—had chosen, and more heat signatures than she would have expected.

Wildlife. It being Canada, those were probably caribou.

Several of them were moving in the general direction of the explosion, which seemed a little weird, and Riley focused on those, jolted out of her thoughts when she heard Mac's voice, significantly more hoarse. "Jack, wait!" Riley glanced back towards the burning cabin, making out their three shapes—barely—all three moving, but two together, and one moving away—

"Jack, get your team and get out of there!" Matty barked, but it was Mac's much more hoarse voice that seemed to do the trick.

"...please..."

She heard one of them take a difficult breath, the wheeze much more alarming this time, and then the third dot headed in a straight line back for the other two.

"Dalton, respond!"

"Jack, what's going on?" Riley tried, and they heard a body land heavily on the ground. Someone was still wheezing.

The third dot stopped moving.

All the dots had stopped moving.

"Bozer, Mac, respond!"

Nothing. Not even coughing, anymore. Just the wheezing, like all three were in the midst of an asthma attack.

Matty turned to Riley. "Did that explosion damage coms? Can they still hear us?"

Riley's fingers flew across the keys, checking the uplink, but there was no diagnostic or error code being sent. "Our connection's still good. They should be able to hear you."

Matty continued trying to rouse them as Riley confirmed that cops and paramedics had been dispatched—and they had, and they would see the burning cabin and hurry but it was miles of winding roads—and she added 'respiratory distress' to the known injuries manifest. But that wasn't going to get them help any sooner, wasn't going to make the road any shorter.

The smoke was poisonous, and all three of them were unconscious. They were never going to make it.

"Riley, is there anyone else in the immediate area? Any hikers, any cellphones attached to that tower?" Matty's voice was calm and steady, Riley had no idea how she could be so calm when they were both watching and listening to the same thing—

"No, there's no one..." But that wasn't true, there was clearly at least one shooter, and Riley toggled back to the cell tower, even as she watched the three heat signatures continue to truck towards the cabin. Though the one in the back was smaller than the front two, and then the lead pair peeled off but the smaller one didn't. It continued along the ridge directly for the burning cabin.

And it was hauling ass.

Riley left it on the screen and quickly analyzed the list of connected devices. "No cell phones," she reported, and then windowed back to the Alberta Public Records office. Maybe someone in one of the other cabins would pick up a landline—

Of course, how the hell they'd missed that explosion and fire, the whole town had to be able to see it was burning, it was right there on the edge—

One of the wheezes cut off, suddenly, like someone with sleep apnea, and Riley held her breath too, waiting endless moments for the sound to come back. As bad as it was, the silence was worse. Whoever it was finally inhaled again, the sound wet, and Riley struggled to focus. She found the number for the next nearest cabin, or at least the phone number at the time the house was purchased, and dialed it. The dot that was headed for the cabin would be there within the next couple minutes.

And for all they knew it was the shooter.

Of course, she could get eyes on him—

The phone rang and Riley put it to the room to make sure Matty could address the homeowner directly, if they could reach him or her. Then she focused on the wildlife cameras. There weren't any pointed directly at the cabin, but there were a few on the side of the ridge where that heat signature was approaching. Maybe they could get a look at whoever it was, determine if they were human or not, friend or foe.

The phone rang four times before a click told her an answering machine was picking up. Riley terminated the call and dialed the next cabin, and there on the screen, the dot was finally within range. She tightened the zoom on the satellite image and confirmed that the shape was definitely a person.

Then she pulled up the nearest wildlife camera.

The next phone was ringing before the heat signature crossed the camera's path, but all the got was a shadow. Just enough to confirm what the infrared image had already told them.

"Riley—"

"On it," she confirmed, and logged into the next camera. It was definitely a human, dressed in dark clothing, but again, they passed through the bottom of the frame, moving too fast to get a good look. It was someone wearing a black beanie and coat, and they didn't seem to be carrying anything. No hiking backpack—but no visible weapons either. And there were no more cameras between that dot and the rest of the team.

They couldn't do anything but watch the screens as the sounds of that person running up gradually became audible over the coms. There was a cough—a deep one, a male voice—and the dot seemed to consider its options, but then it headed for the two heat signatures that were closer together. It—he—passed Jack as he did so, but Jack had collapsed on his chest, and his button cam showed them only darkness.

No gunshot.

"Matty..." She couldn't finish the question. Her boss had approached the screen, as if she could actually get closer to her downed agents, and she was frowning hard enough to burn a hole through the image to the actual ground in Canada.

"The shooter wouldn't have sprinted a mile to make sure they were dead. They'd wait and see what the paramedics did, and they'd take out the vehicles on the way down." Her voice was detached. Clinical.

And sure enough, whoever had run to the cabin started dragging two of their agents—and Riley was pretty sure it was Mac and Boze—away from the cabin. Whoever it was had a brain, too—he was pulling them perpendicular to the direction the wind was blowing the smoke, rather than down the cabin's driveway. He coughed now and then, but seemed to be either better equipped or was just taking careful breaths. Despite the fact that he'd run at least a mile over rugged territory at elevation he didn't seem to be having any trouble. Within twenty seconds he'd pulled Mac and Bozer about fifty yards, well out of harm's way.

Then he turned and went back for Jack.

"What's the paramedics' ETA?"

It took her a second to sort out the window with the paramedics' GPS. "Almost eight minutes." If they were away from the poisonous smoke, would fresh air be enough...?

The dot made it to Jack, they heard the man grunt, plant his boots, and then roll Jack over. A gloved hand shot out and covered Jack's button cam. A second later, Riley lost signal entirely.

She stared at the screen a second, not understanding, and the dot immediately began dragging Jack away from the fire, as well. He was coughing a little more, but still seemed in much better shape than Jack was.

"...did he just...?" But who would spot a button cam—and that quickly? Who would want to hide themselves—

She didn't finish the sentence; Riley instead rewound the last few seconds of footage they'd captured, until it was black again, and then tapped it forward, frame by frame. Blades of grass became visible as Jack started to turn over, then smokey sunlight, and the camera adjusted for a split second, and right before a black-gloved hand closed down on it she got a blurry shot of the good Samaritan's face.

He was neither good, nor a Samaritan.

"Murdoc," Matty growled softly. "Son of a bitch."

Once he dragged Jack to Bozer and Mac, he stopped, hovering there beside them, and outside of a cough now and then he didn't say a word.

"Murdoc!" Matty shouted, clearly trying to attract his attention through their com system, but either he didn't hear, or he just didn't feel like talking to them. He must have known they were wearing coms, he'd realized Jack had a button cam, he must've—

He must've located Lara just like they did. And once he found her talking to them, he had to take her out then and there, before she could give them a lead on him. A sharp crack alerted Riley to the fact that she was gripping her rig tightly enough to make the chassis pop.

Paramedics were still three minutes out.

The sound of fabric rustling came over coms, then, as if Murdoc was grabbing them to start hauling them someplace else, and Matty glared at the infrared image. It just didn't show them enough detail. Even if she switched back to regular satellite, all they'd see were the tops of trees.

"He's going through their pockets," Matty surmised, when the sound temporarily stopped, then started up again, this time with the clear audio of a zipper being unzipped. "Checking them for evidence."

But leaving the coms in their ears, even when he'd destroyed the camera. He wanted them to hear. To hear, and to worry about what he was doing to their family.

Whether or not he was hurting them.

There was a hard thumping sound, kind of hollow, and they heard a weak cough. It sounded like Bozer. And Riley pressed her lips together when she realized what it must have been, and exactly what that meant.

Murdoc had hit him in the chest to make sure he was still breathing. He was making sure they stayed alive until the paramedics got there. And the only place to hit him to make him breathe was—

Was right over the injury. The slice that had opened up his abdomen and chest.

"That piece of shit," she growled hotly. "He's taunting us."

"And he may have just saved their lives," Matty replied in a measured tone. "We're off script right now. He was forced to respond and now he's afraid he's damaged his toys before he finished playing with them." Her dark eyes followed his every move. "He's off balance, and we can use it."

The paramedics were less than a minute out, and Riley imagined Murdoc could hear the sirens, because he hovered over them again, then took off at a much more reasonable jog.

"Follow him," Matty growled, already picking up her phone. "He's isolated and he is not getting away."

"You're damn right he's not," Riley muttered, and panned their satellite back out, to make sure his dot stayed front and center. She also started lining up the next satellite so they'd have uninterrupted coverage of the Canadian authorities actually apprehending him.

Murdoc didn't go far, nor did he make a move for the incoming authorities. Instead, he jogged a few hundred yards north of the cabin blaze, then took a running head start and leapt off the edge of the ridge.

For one beautiful, beautiful moment, Riley wondered if he'd decided he was caught, and wasn't willing to be taken alive—but then the image shifted and something partially obscured his heat signature. She toggled the satellite out of infrared, and they beheld a royal blue parachute, the rectangular kind that base-jumpers used to cruise effortlessly through city streets after bailing off the roofs of skyscrapers.

He was going to glide back down into town and try to blend in with the townsfolk to lose them. She'd dispatched the town's meager police presence to the cabin, Murdoc would beat them back to town by at least ten minutes.

"Oh no you don't," Riley snarled, zooming the satellite back in and already trying to calculate his most likely landing spot, even as they heard several alarmed voices over coms, trying to rouse Jack, Mac, and Bozer.

"Stay with Murdoc," Webber commanded, her phone to her ear, and Riley glanced up at the screen, seeing multiple heat signatures gathered around the agents, and others fanning out into the woods, sixty seconds too late.

They were getting help, all the help she could possibly give them. The only other helpful thing she could do right now was take Murdoc out of play, for good.

He kind of had his pick of landing sites; it wasn't a big town, but it had infrastructure from both a winter and a summer Olympics held there in years past, that played right into ease of disappearing. There were a few places where most of the townsfolk congregated, and the main street was plenty wide enough. Riley managed to upload a primitive targeting system to the satellite to assist, and Murdoc set himself down gently as you please smack in the middle of the main intersection of town.

Riley ground her teeth as she watched—in both infrared and the best zoom the satellite could give her—the surprised pedestrians giving him a standing round of applause. Like it was a show, an act. And damned if he didn't throw his arms wide and his head back, grinning broadly, right up at the sky.

At them. Taking his bow for killing their only lead.

"Keeping smiling, you smug bastard," she told him, hastily teaching the program what to focus on. Height, weight, black jacket, black beanie.

"He's going to ditch the clothes immediately," her boss cautioned her, watching her enter the criteria. "It'll be harder for him to ditch his pants and shoes."

Blue jeans—not black—and brown hiking boots, moving too quickly for her to nail down a manufacturer. Murdoc abandoned the parachute in the street, probably to tie up traffic even as his adoring fans hurried to claim it as a souvenir, and ducked into the nearest store.

Less than twenty seconds later Riley was into their security system, and she caught a disembodied hand swiping a red caribou ball cap off a display.

He fled out the back while the front staff was still trying to figure out what was going on in the street, and his jacket was ditched inside the cab of a sky blue pick-up, revealing a black short-sleeve tee shirt underneath.

"I hope you're fucking freezing" she growled, as he then ducked into the propped open door of a restaurant three shops down the strip mall.

No security system she could get into—at least no cameras—

But mobiles were everywhere.

Riley toggled out of the window to create a Shodan map, and one by one, every single internet connected device with a camera started popping up on the big screen. Matty didn't miss a beat; she put all her focus on those many moving images, and it didn't take her long.

"There. He's ditched the ball cap and just grabbed a rust red down jacket."

Riley threw the new criteria into the targeting app and glanced up, trying to follow him through the nauseating map of images. She caught a glimpse of him passing a couple sitting outside at a café, and then on a proper security system as he crossed the lobby of—

The town cinema.

"No, no no no no no..." Too many people, infrared was useless, and phones would be in people's pockets. He entered theater two, and Riley lost him after that.

"—don't care what you're doing, number three on Interpol's Watch List is in your damn theater!" Matty growled into her phone, as Riley started remotely accessing the nearest available devices. But all they got were black screens; apparently Canadians were better about netiquette than their southern cousins.

And he'd entered a theater that was almost finished with its showing.

"Matty, if they can't keep the people in there before the movie lets out—"

Then he could be one of a hundred people leaving that theater. They'd lose him.

And it wasn't like it was an Imax. It was old school film. Nothing to hack. Riley turned her attention to the cineplex's fire and emergency system. In case of active shooter they were designed to lock down—

In the United States. Not in Canada.

"Yes! Right now! In Theater 2!"

Riley saw it on the main screen first; a flash of light in the theater hallway, not unlike lightning, as the fire alarm strobes came to life. Matty whirled with a glare, and Riley shook her head vigorously, making absolutely damn sure she hadn't fat-fingered something.

The fire alarm had been triggered.

People began making their way out of all six theaters into the main hall, and Riley grabbed as many feeds as she could, trunking them directly to the analysts in the room next door. She also opened up the main chat group.

Facial rec looking for Murdoc—PRIORITY 1

And he'd already had a chance to go through the lobby, he'd already gotten a bead on all the cameras—

"No," she growled, scanning every face that came out of Theater Two, as best she could. "No, you son of a bitch, you don't get away this time—"

The throngs—and all of them putting on their winter gear, hats and coats and arms in the air—migrated as one giant mass through the main lobby and out the doors, and the cameras there showed on the backs of people's heads. There were a couple theater employees out there, whether just trying to control the masses or doing what Matty had told them, Riley couldn't tell, but—

But they were going to lose him. It's exactly what she would have done. Rendered all their cameras and satellites useless. Four hundred cars were going to leave the parking lot, and he could be in any one of them. They might get lucky on the analysis, figure out which car it was after the fact, but then they'd be playing catch-up again, instead of for once—just once—being out in front of him.

"Dammit!" Riley shoved her rig off her lap onto the sofa and stalked towards the main screen, willing him to turn again and smirk at them, to give himself away.

This time he didn't. The throngs started to thin out, and Riley watched her targeting software move from human to human without a hit.

"Okay, so we—blockade the main roads." He was relatively isolated, it was a small town so not too many paths in or out—

"They don't have the manpower and we can't get it there in time." Matty's voice was cool, and Riley ignored her, checking on the locations of their emergency responders for herself. She found nearly all of them headed up the road to the cabin, including their emergency hazmat team. One of the firetrucks had peeled off and started back down the mountain, but by now the movie theater had been cleared and she already knew the system was telling them someone had pulled a manual alarm in Theater Two.

Matty was right. There was no one to close the roads.

"Fine, we push the perimeter out—"

"Riley." The director never took her eyes off the monitors. "We're not going to pick him up on the roads. He'll have to fly out. Focus your attention on all the nearest airstrips—even if it's a street the local crop dusters use."

...Duh. Of course.

She was about to open her mouth to apologize, and her eyes fell back on the screen, where more than half of all first responders in town were putting a perimeter around what was probably still an incredibly toxic fire. There were too many treetops in the way, she'd lost track of which heat signatures represented Jack, Mac, and Boze, but they could clearly hear a never-ending, muffled chatter of paramedics over the boys' coms. Some doors slammed, indicating they'd been loaded up, and two of the ambulances almost immediately started back down the mountain.

Luckily, the driver was already transmitting to the hospital, and it was easy to bring the transcription up on the screen. Riley found her bottom lip firmly trapped between her teeth, and when she let go of it she tasted pennies.

"...all three are stabilizing, hypoxic and on oxygen," she reported, a little stiltedly, and Matty turned to her with a much softer expression than she'd expected.

"Dispatch a team to secure the medical facility in case they're admitted. I doubt Murdoc will make a play for them, but..." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "We know where he is, which is more than we've had in a month. We are going to get him, Riley."

There was a lot of anger in her voice, but also a lot of resolution, and Riley let it soak into her frantic brain. He might have gotten away temporarily, but it was only temporarily, and Matty was right—he had to leave somehow. They still had a chance.

She let that thought calm her, and when she put her fingers back on the keyboard, they were no longer trembling. Riley had already dispatched Phoenix's second jet and was more than halfway through getting a good handle on the available air options when one of the other analysts stuck their head into the War Room. "Hey, uhm, Director? Riley?"

Both women looked up to find Patrick hovering hesitantly in the door. He didn't continue until they'd both started at him for several seconds, and Matty had made an irritated 'get on with it' motion. "Ah, we've done the initial analysis and we didn't get a hit. There were a lot of faces obscured by headwear, so we're starting the second analysis trying to find a hit on height and build—"

"Let us know when you finish." It was both acknowledgement and dismissal, and the slightly awkward analyst bobbed his head and retreated to the glassed-in room next door. Riley finished up getting passenger manifests and started cross-referencing them against known aliases before a door slammed, over coms, and signaled to the women in the War Room that Mac, Jack, and Bozer had finally arrived at the area hospital.

Riley toggled back to the hospital feeds, getting them visibility into the receiving dock, and her chat window from earlier caught her eye.

**A buck? Try 5**

She snorted to herself, softly. "Nice try," she complimented B4ndzz, and replied.

**Buck 50 OBO**

"Well the price definitely came down fast," Matty noted dryly, and Riley was about to explain that that was fifteen hundred dollars, not a literal dollar fifty, when she realized what she was actually bargaining for.

The hacker who had supplied Murdoc with his goods.

**Do all your base belong in NA**

"I'm asking if this guy or girl is based in North America," Riley pre-empted the question, and Matty let it slide. B4ndzz had clearly gotten bored in the interim, and Riley's search of the passenger manifests in the area came up blank for known aliases of both Murdoc and of Lara Clayton.

Though it would be a hell of a trick for Murdoc to convince anyone he was a 'Lara,' or any woman for that matter.

Riley watched the ambulances unload, and even though it had been clear from coms that none of them were talking, the video showed that none of them were conscious. They were all three wearing masks; all had been stripped to their shirts and in Jack's case had had his sleeve cut off to give them access to the agents' arms. Bozer also had stained white bandaging on his thigh, it was hard to tell at their angle how bad it was. They were quickly transferred into the ER, and Riley followed them on the cameras as she waited anxiously for B4ndzz to respond.

Her old friend didn't torture her too long.  **U angels flock together yo**

So not just North America. Los Angeles.

"Of course," she murmured aloud.

"Why of course? I presume that's another reference to LA? Why would we be a hotbed—" But then Matty stopped herself. "Paparazzi," she answered her own question. "Spying on celebs and CEOs."

"You know it," Riley confirmed, drumming her fingertips feather-lightly on the keyboard as she tried to decide what to do. "Big money, not a lot of risk. Get a job as a valet, put a bug in the right car, and you've got blackmail material on everybody from Elon Musk to Beyonce."

**Tell u what a buck and a key**

She didn't even consider that one.  **A buck and get yr own key**

"A private encryption key, and knowing B4ndzz, they'll want one with a link back to US intelligence."

Matty arched an eyebrow, and Riley shrugged. "We bonded over a mutual hatred of the man." Sad but true. "My first hack into the NSA was in part to show up B4ndzz here." For obvious reasons, Matty wouldn't let her do it even if she was willing.

**U salty**

Riley rolled her eyes.  **A buck if you get me a meet in 24**

She figured that one was pretty self-explanatory when Matty didn't even glance at her. They split their attention between the chat window and the ER, watching nurses flitting around the three beds. A fairly large machine was being wheeled over—a respirator, Riley realized—and she licked her bottom lip when they stuck it between Bozer and Jack.

But no one immediately made motions to hook up either one of them; they took some blood samples and the first pieces of medical data started trickling in. Riley sent it down to Phoenix medical, quite sure that Matty had already looped them in.

On the screen, Mac's right arm moved a little.

Riley went back to the airports, making sure the analysts had every camera she could give them, and watched the Phoenix's much more powerful facial recognition software scanning everyone walking in. If he hid his face or something blocked him, the image would get automatically flagged and sent to a human analyst. "You're not getting on a plane that way, asshole," she informed him, quietly but fiercely.

...of course, Murdoc would know that. It was still more likely he'd try a small airfield, had scheduled his exfil just like everyone else did. None of those passenger manifests had indicated any of the flights were headed to California, but she'd tasked software to track each and every private jet, helicopter, and low-altitude prop that took off from the expanded radius around the town.

Now it was just a waiting game.

**Do u 1 better how bout a date tonight?**

**With u? got a headache** , she typed back instantly. As expected, her friend knew her better than that.

**U don't want the warez that's fine**

Riley sat up straighter. Matty didn't move.

"B4ndzz's saying—"

"That they can set up a meet with you and whoever wrote the worm this evening, in LA. I can read," Matty reminded her curtly. And then didn't say anything else.

Riley stared at her, almost speechless. "...why wouldn't we jump on this?" Riley gestured at the screen. "If Murdoc slips out somehow, slips the net then—"

"Then B4ndzz will still be able to set up a meet when we've got some intel on who exactly you're meeting." It was crisp and sharp. "I'm not about to send another one of you into a situation blind in the name of expediency."

"But—" Riley stopped herself. "But we know where Murdoc is. And he knows we know. He knows he has to be more careful. If he calls up his guy, tells him to lay low, there's no guarantee of a meet at all—"

"Fine. Then get B4ndzz to cough up some information on this other hacker. An alias, a street address, something—"

"That's not how it works. And you know it," she added, a little hotly, somehow on her feet. "None of your Smoking Man contacts would tell you what you needed to know to just circumvent them! B4ndzz wants to get paid!"

"Then we'll pay him or her." Matty was unruffled. "Set up the meet, and we surveil. You'll blow them off, got stuck in traffic, doesn't matter. Once we know who we're dealing with—"

"Matty, you can't just blow these people off—"

"Riley!" It was almost a shout, and the diminutive woman turned so she was facing her directly. "This morning I sent your team out on sketchy intel and all three of them are lying unconscious in an emergency room in another country! I'm not about to send you on a date with someone who's been in bed with Murdoc!"

Riley stared at her, flabbergasted. But only for a moment. "We can't just 'surveil' this guy. He designs state of the art surveillance! Hardware and software that got past us! Got past me! What, you think we can just put two agents in a black SUV down the block?!" She almost laughed; it was insane. "Matty, you have green-lit ops with way less to go on than this! This guy could give us Murdoc's base of operations here in LA! We wouldn't even need to track down the plane, we could be waiting in his damn living room!"

"Or we could be walking directly into a trap!" Matty shouted back, then took a short, sharp breath through her nose. When she spoke again, her voice was controlled. "Murdoc got hold of our intel somehow. So let me ask you again. Are you certain you've gotten rid of all the bugs? Because if you haven't," Matty plowed on deliberately, before Riley could even take a breath to answer, "then you will be walking right into his trap, Riley. Do you understand that?"

If she hadn't gotten rid of the all the bugs, if Murdoc had gotten word from them about Lara Clayton, then he could very well find out she was going to meet his hacker friend, and tip the guy off.

"Then let's assume it's a trap," Riley said matter of factly.

Matty blinked at her, but then her dark eyes focused on something Riley couldn't see as the woman started putting it together. "You mean set up an ambush."

"That's exactly what I mean. I mean go in there and distract this guy and have tac get him. If I had access to his systems, I could confirm that Phoenix is clean, and even if we can't follow him back to Murdoc, he's got to have something. Places he met Murdoc, a money trail, something." Riley licked her lips. "But if we do that, we have to do it now, before Murdoc has a chance to dial back in and spy on us. Right now he's on the run or in the air, and if he does have a bug on us, he's not actively listening to it. Too risky, we might catch onto the transmission and use it to triangulate a location. But as soon as he catches his breath, he's gonna check in and find out what we know. If we do this, it is literally now or not at all."

Matty didn't say anything for a moment. "You'd burn your cover with B4ndzz."

But Riley was already shaking her head. "I'll say I was after the wares because I knew the feds were onto me. I'll slip away and ream B4ndzz a new one for not being careful enough. Matty, please. Send in as much backup as you want, but please let me do this."

She wanted to do it Matty's way, she really did, but if the answer was no, Riley was going to storm off to the ladies room, using Mac's paperclip in the toaster trick to start a small diversion, and set up the meet herself. They were never going to get a better shot at piecing together what Murdoc had been up to, what he had planned—

If they could catch him in the air, and get his hacker, they had him. He was done.

She could get him before he got her.

And maybe Matty saw it in her eyes, because her boss's hardened. "You go with a four man team."

"One," Riley corrected. "Otherwise we'll never even make it through the door."

The smaller woman frowned. "Riley, this is not a negotiation—"

"You can have four tac teams out there covering every direction, but they can't move in until I've gotten into the building. And to get in the building, this guy is gonna be expecting Artemis37. She doesn't run with a squad of guys, Matty, and anyone in our line of work can smell a fed a mile away. I'll take a member of tac with me, okay? A boyfriend is fine—four of them is overkill."

And before Matty could disagree, Riley grabbed her rig and replied to B4ndzz:

**Set it up I guess**

Then:  **Not 2 late I got school 2morrow**

Meaning she had an early morning gig ahead of her. It would work perfectly into keeping Artemis cool with B4ndzz.

Motion on the screens caught both women’s attention: Mac was coming around, and he was apparently coming around with the expectation that he was still in immediate danger. Remarkably, the medics hadn't found their coms yet, and Matty put them to good use.

"Blondie, calm down! You're safe. Can you hear me?"

He was almost invisible beneath three startled nurses and an orderly, but his legs stopped moving quite so frantically, and they clearly heard him start hacking, with a deep, wet rattle that made Riley's lungs ache in sympathy.

"You're in a hospital, MacGyver. Tac's on the way, Jack and Bozer are right there beside you. Murdoc's gone." She spoke strongly to be heard over his coughing. "You're okay, Mac. Let them help you."

Whether he could truly hear her or not, he seemed to become less interested in getting off the gurney, and more interested in continuing to breathe. Once one of the nurses and the orderly peeled off, Riley was able to relax, and she saw that Mac's hand was on his oxygen mask—but to hold it in place while he coughed, not to fight with his caregivers.

It only made her more resolute. She re-muted coms. "Okay. We can't go in with regular coms, he or she will find them just like Bedlam74 would have if not for Mac's...thing." Which honestly probably wasn't a bad idea to try to recreate, except for the fact that Mac was barely cogent in a hospital bed six hours north and therefore unavailable to build another one. "I'm gonna get started on a workaround. Uh...who do we have from tac on prem?"

It was pretty clear Matty didn't like where she was headed. "I still haven't green-lit this operation, nor do you actually have a meet set up yet," the woman reminded her. "In the meantime, you seem to have forgotten that we're leading a massive manhunt for the very sociopath you're hoping to catch with this meet. If we get Murdoc now, we can go after that hacker at our leisure."

Riley knew when to push, and when to stop. She was on thin enough ice as it was. "I've sent everything we have to the analysts, and set up alerts for any anomalies. There's nothing else to do but wait for him to trigger one of those alerts. And it's going to take me a couple hours to make something we can activate and deactivate without being obvious." Not to mention cut through the known jamming technologies. There was no telling how paranoid this person was.

"And if we get Murdoc, then I don't have to finish," she added lightly. "But if we don't..."

The director slowly shook her head. "Fine. Prep work only. And the moment B4ndzz gives you the location, you send it up to me. Grant Simmons is Jack's backup, and he will decide if tac can support the op or not. Is that understood?"

Riley dipped her head in a nod. "Yeah, got it."

"Don't make me lock the building down, Riley. You and I are doing this together, or not at all."

And if not, she could always cancel the building lock-down if she wanted.


	2. Lecture 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley has a plan to get Murdoc's little helper, but Murdoc's little helper also has a plan to get her. And nobody is going to stand in his way.
> 
> Except maybe Murdoc himself.

Grant Simmons blew out his cheeks. "You already know what I'm going to say."

Beside him, the director of the Phoenix Foundation graced him with a small smile. "It's a bad idea."

"Understatement," he replied. "Granted, it's not a fortress or a military installation level bad idea, but it's pretty far from ideal." He crossed the room in a few strides, gesturing to the image. "The mix of retail and residential will work against us. This block? This has been gentrified, and recently. Better utilities, decent security systems, but still not upscale. This block?" He indicated the block to the east—incidentally the address that Riley had texted to her boss just a few minutes ago.

"This block is officially the demarcation point for the less gentrified area. You've got barely legal businesses on the ground floor and residences above. Those people ain't gonna see nothin', if you get my drift."

They were going to mind their own damn business even if you were dragging a woman into your apartment by her hair. He could see why this 'R34mer22' had chosen it; redundant utilities for power and telecom services, iffy but not downright shady. The parking garage—apparently built for when the renovations to the older strip mall across the street were finished, which clearly hadn't happened yet—made it easy to hide a swanky car while you transacted business.

The hacker's building was three stories, as was the parking garage, and they were the two tallest buildings. No good place to put a sniper's nest, not even billboards on top of the other buildings. And if the parking garage was meant for the hacker's customers, they couldn't use it as a staging area without tipping him off. They'd have to be at least a block off in every direction.

A lot of things could happen to an agent when their backup was a block away.

The door clicked softly open, and Simmons glanced over his shoulder to find that Davis had just come in. She was smirking.

"Well, I didn't do quite as good a job as Mac would have, but they'll work." She held up what looked a lot like a pair of iPhone earbuds, and Simmons wondered if he was supposed to be impressed.

Or know what the hell she was talking about.

"I connected them to our mini coms, so when whichever agent and I head in there, we pluck out the earbuds, leave the mini coms in our ears. As you know, they've only got a thirty minute battery—that's how we were able to manufacture them so small—and they charge wirelessly. I've completely discharged them, and put a charging pad in the earbuds." She held them up in her hand. "So as long as the earbuds aren't in our ears, the mini coms have zero power."

It took him a second to put all that together; fortunately, Webber was all over it. "And then after you've passed the scans, you put one of the earbuds back in"

"And we're back in business," Riley confirmed. "There's also a mic in the actual earbuds, which will be physically connected to our smartphones, but will actually be transmitting disguised as your normal everyday Uber app traffic."

Simmons held up a hand. "Let me get this straight. We'll be able to hear you one hundred percent of the time, and you'll be able to hear us only when you have one of those earbuds in your ears."

"Correct," she affirmed.

Which left a glaring problem. "Isn't this—Reformer22—going to get suspicious if you pop an earbud in while he's talking to you?"

"Probably," she admitted. "Chances are I won't be able to put one in. But the agent accompanying me can tune out of the convo. It's not like anyone on tac is going to understand what we're saying anyway—sorry," she added quickly, and Simmons just shook his head.

"No, you're right about that." He never would have been able to turn R34mer22 into an English word without Riley translating. "And how does this prevent good old-fashioned signal jamming?"

In answer, the young woman displayed the actual wires with a Vanna White-esque flourish. "This is the part I couldn't figure out how to miniaturize. It's just a super-long antenna. I'll be transmitting on ultra-low and ultra-high frequencies, and the signal will actually be split between them, so even if he's got something running that can detect those signals, they're both encrypted and scrambled. They'll look like some kind of interference—like I'm running some anti-surveillance jamming of my own."

Making a bad guy ignore your safety precautions because you were busy trying to nullify his was usually a pretty good method for getting away with something—temporarily. And in this case, temporary is all they needed.

"So what's the play here?"

Riley then focused on Webber, deferring to her, and after an appropriate amount of time, Matty replied.

"Riley's going to chat up our friendly neighborhood hacker and see if she can get any information on Murdoc and what he may have purchased or ordered. He's more likely to brag to her than he is to me." She made a sour face. "As soon as Riley is certain she's got the right guy, she'll call it, and we'll take him in."

"And I can only put one agent on her?" Simmons didn't even try to sound apologetic. They were talking about literally handing Riley Davis to someone who at the very least had a working relationship with the psychopath who wanted to kidnap her for his fucked up torture games. She was going to be more exposed than she had been since this entire thing had started. And with Dalton and the rest of the team only just now getting discharged for their flight home—another bad idea, considering they had zero new intelligence on Murdoc's current whereabouts—Grant didn't even want to contemplate what would happen if this went sideways.

"You can have as many agents as it takes," Matty informed him, in a tone that brooked no argument. "But only one agent is going in with her. We still don't know what he looks like, and while I don't think he can pull Murdoc's little disappearing trick from earlier, I don't want to have to explain to the local police precinct why we've temporarily arrested an entire block's worth of citizens."

Not that he was above doing that if that was what it took. "Can they at least go in armed?"

Matty glanced at Riley, who nodded. "Yeah, that wouldn't be too weird. We'll probably have to give them up, though, when we walk in. He won't wanna get robbed at gunpoint any more than you would."

So whoever he sent in to watch her back, they'd have to go in with a fiberglass or plastic gun, and a ceramic knife. "And as soon as you tag him and get what you want out of him—"

"Then we call in the cavalry," Riley agreed. "Whatever codeword you want."

Simmons looked back at the six city blocks on the screen, eyeing the buildings and the text bubbles with their vital characteristics. "He's probably got redundant power, but we can cut it from both neighborhoods here and here." He gestured. "If I put a pair in both places, that gives us coverage of both these streets. Three mobile units can cover north, west, and south. East gets you into narrow streets and residences, if he's as smart as Davis is he'll never let himself get boxed in there." Simmons stepped up to the map and flared his fingers, zooming out into the larger suburb.

"Police helicopters wouldn't be out of place in this neighborhood, so we'll have an air unit in the area." He turned to look at the young analyst. "Anyone do any subterranean mapping of this area?"

Riley nodded. "Normal utility tunnels, nothing else." Which meant the sewers were definitely large enough to crawl through—but it would be pretty hard to take a hostage with you.

Which just left someone actually straight up shooting her to worry about.

"You're wearing a vest."

Riley didn't even flinch. "No argument here. Boze made me that top for the casino op, that'll work. It's a little early to head out for the clubs, but I can say we're gonna grab dinner first."

The director took a deep breath, turning to study the map. Her expression was hard to decipher. "Grant, you are certain you can keep this contained?"

"No," he admitted. "Any op can go bad. I don't want her off Phoenix property unless this is the only way to get a lead on Murdoc." He turned back to Riley. "You are certain that I can't send in Jada or another agent and you can't talk them through this conversation?"

Davis was already shaking her head. "No. That requires a consistent transmission over coms, and there's no way to mask that. Whoever goes in there needs to be able to talk the talk."

"What about—" Matty snapped her fingers. "—the mousy analyst—Patrick."

Not the best descriptor, Simmons thought to himself. Riley looked similarly unimpressed. "He wouldn't know the difference between a hacker and a script kiddie, and no one of this guy's caliber would take him seriously. Or believe that someone like B4ndzz would refer him." She hesitated. "Jill can talk the talk, but...I don't know that anyone would believe she was buying this kinda hardware. She's sorta—" Riley hesitated, looking for the right word.

"Jill," Matty supplied. "She's not trained for this kind of operation."

"Fine, no decoys. What about isotope tracking?"

Another headshake. "Someone like this is going to be running radiation detection—probably for his own gear." Matty turned on Davis in alarm, and she just shrugged. "The isotope tracking trick's been on the books for a while now. Feds use it to mark merchandise that comes through the ports. He's gonna scan what he buys before he accepts it if he doesn't wanna get caught. I would."

"I hear you offering a lot of obstacles and not a lot of solutions." The young analyst focused on him, and Simmons turned, folding his arms. "Tell me this isn't about revenge." Another hacker—a good one, maybe better than she was—getting Murdoc into their network. Into her own damn bedroom. That kind of territorial invasion would piss anyone off, and with Davis' prison record, and general disregard for federal law and jurisdiction—

And Riley gave him a little smirk. "Oh, it's about revenge all right. This guy should have known better than to deal with someone like Murdoc, and he sure as hell should have known better than to try to infiltrate the Phoenix." Then she sobered a little. "Look, for all we know Murdoc is literally driving back, since he still hasn't shown up on a single passenger manifest and it's been close to seven hours. I've got facial rec running on the US/Canadian border but..." She trailed off, looking much less cocky than she usually did, and Simmons could see the underlying tension, even as she tried to play it off.

"This is our last lead on Murdoc. The evidence from the warehouse and the hotel is dried up. Clayton's dead. I...I don't see any other options here."

And either way it was her ass in a sling. Murdoc was coming for her, and they all knew it. His teams were doing well on their adjusted details, but they couldn't keep this up forever. Mac was temporarily laid up, so he'd be no fun in one of Murdoc's fucked up games at the moment—

Davis was right. It was their last lead, and at the very least they knew—definitively—that Murdoc was not in LA.

"We will keep her as safe as we possibly can," Grant said carefully. "Who do you want on your six, Riley?"

She was pretty well versed with the tactical agents by now, and the way she took a breath to immediately answer, he knew she'd already picked one.

"Agent Ramirez," she said, and then seemed to unconsciously glance at Matty, as if seeking approval. "He's close to my age, good looking, matching skin tones."

Simmons hesitated a moment, not quite sure if he should speak or not. Luckily, Webber beat him to it. She had an eyebrow cocked. "Riley, you are aware that Ricardo Ramirez—"

"Isn't interested in women?" she finished, with a small smile. "Yeah, I picked up on that. But he's a great dancer, and if Artemis is about to hit the clubs, she's gonna bring her hot Hispanic boy toy, not a bodyguard."

Matty glanced at him, and Simmons fought to keep his expression neutral. "That may be the first time anyone has referred to one of my agents as a 'boy toy,'"—and Riley looked utterly unrepentant—"but he's solid, and they know each other pretty well." Ramirez wasn't as bulky as some of the other tac agents, and there was very little about him that screamed 'law enforcement.' Honestly, there was very little about Ramirez that screamed anything. He'd been in the Army during "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and it had taken Grant a good year to come to that conclusion on his own. There was no doubt Ramirez could play at being her arm candy.

And no doubt that he would do everything in his power to keep Riley Davis safe.

Webber seemed comfortable with the choice, and Simmons dipped his chin in a nod. "Alright, I'll brief the teams, and get Ramirez to meet you down in wardrobe. If he hands you a weapon for concealment purposes, you take it and you keep it on you unless there is literally no choice but to surrender it. You copy me, Davis?"

"Got it," she confirmed, her tone still plenty serious, and after one more look at the director—just to communicate, silently and one more time, that he wasn't a fan of this plan—he headed out of the War Room to gather the troops.

* * *

“So this is definitely gonna wash off, right?” Ricardo asked, holding the handheld mirror he’d been given as he studied the design that started about three inches below the top of his back, snaked up the back of his neck, slipped around his right side, and curved to a stop under his jaw. It was a tribal design inspired by ancient Mexican civilizations.

“Yes,” Lena, the talented woman who’d just airbrushed the design promised with a chuckle, cleaning and putting away her equipment. “You’ll have it for a few days, tops. Why, you don’t like it?”

“I love it,” Ricardo assured her honestly. “But my family would throw a fit if they saw me with it.”

“Why?” Riley asked as she looked through the outfits she had available to her, holding them in front of herself in the mirror to her left.

“Because my family came from the mountains of central Mexico,” Ricardo explained with a shrug. “We’re Aztec, not Mayan, and this design is definitely more Mayan than Aztec.”

“You can actually trace yourselves back to the Aztecs?” Riley looked over in surprise.

“Honey, some of my relatives still in Mexico are fluent in Nahuatl,” he confirmed with a chuckle. “I’m hardly fluent, but I know a bit.”

“That’s awesome,” Lena admitted, then closed up the case for her airbrush. “Try not to move your neck too much for the next ten minutes, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed with a grin. Then, as she left, he stood up from the chair he’d been sitting in for the past twenty minutes, moving to the rack of clothes that the lovely folks in wardrobe had pulled for him, starting to peruse.

“You nervous?” he asked the young woman beside him after a few minutes of silence. She blinked at him.

“No, why?”

“Because you’ve been going through that rack the whole time I was getting inked up and there are, like, maybe thirty items on it,” Ramirez replied, raising an eyebrow at her in the mirror across from him so that he didn’t turn his head. “You’ve held nearly every combination up in front of the mirror, so unless you’re just  _ super _ indecisive about what you’re gonna wear for our date...”

Riley didn’t say anything for a few seconds, looking back at him, and then she shrugged, deciding not to comment as she went for her twelfth pass through the rack.

“Look, Riley, I’m not gonna tell you not to be nervous, because that’s just the dumbest thing, like ‘oh, wow, thanks a lot, you have magically cured me of all anxiety,’” she laughed slightly when he spoke in a comical voice to further express the stupidity of the idea, “but I do want you to know that I’ve got your back. And besides, we’re going up against a nerd who I’m willing to bet is not nearly as badass as you are; between the two of us, I think we got this.”

“You’re probably right,” Riley nodded, relaxing just a bit, but not completely. Ricardo plucked a pair of black denim jeans from his rack and draped them over his arm.

“And, y’know, if we strike out tonight,” he shrugged, “I mean...Murdoc needed some  _ hella _ lucky circumstances to get his hands on Bozer, so what we’re doing to lock you guys down has to be working. We might not get the bastard tonight, but he can’t get to you, either.”

That seemed to actually resonate with her, and some of the tension released from her shoulders. She flashed him a smile.

“Thanks, Ricardo.”

“Anytime,  _ mamita _ ,” he chuckled with a wicked grin. They were quiet for a few more minutes before Ricardo had gathered the rest of his outfit. He was heading for the curtain behind which he could change when he saw that Riley was holding up a corset top with lace sleeves, and he rolled his eyes.

“Alright, that’s it,” he sighed, dumping his haul in the little stall and quickly going over to her side. “You would look gorgeous in all of this, but please, let me.”

Riley raised her eyebrows at him, then put the top back on the rack and held her hands up. Ricardo smiled and started flicking through the clothes. He plucked out a pair of short black jean shorts; a bullet-resistant black t-shirt with a blue, heart-shaped Anonymous mask smoking a cigarette on it and a rip in the neckline; and a burgundy, faux leather moto jacket. Then he turned to the array of shoes and selected a pair of thigh-high black boots.

“You’re on your own for jewelry,” he told her, handing her the boots. “Thank me later. Go on.”

Ricardo shooed her towards the changing area next to his, and she shot him an amused and slightly apprehensive look before they both ducked behind their respective curtains. Ricardo emerged first, sporting boots; the tight, stretchy, black jeans; a plain forest-green muscle shirt; and a distressed, faded black denim jacket. He looked at himself in the mirror, fixed a stray piece of his dark hair, and turned his attention to the available accessories. He’d selected a very nice silver watch and was putting it on when Riley emerged from behind the curtain.

“ _ Yes _ !” he approved with a grin, causing Riley to laugh. “See? Am I good, or am I good?”

“Well, I can’t say you’re wrong,” Riley admitted, studying herself in the mirror before she, too, went to look at accessories. Ramirez finished his look off with a small black hoop in his left nostril, and Riley went with dangling silver earrings and a black choker.

“Final verdict?” Riley asked, adjusting her earring and then turning to face him. Ricardo looked her up and down, then clapped quickly.

“Marvelous,” he approved. “Or, as a white boy with one year of Spanish under his belt would say,” he cleared his throat and spoke with an almost offensively-terrible accent, “muy caliente, señorita.”

Riley laughed genuinely, prompting Ricardo to dissolve into giggles as well, and he took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Alright, we’ve got you looking gorgeous,” he said with a grin, motioning for her to follow him across the room to the array of weapons waiting for them. “Now let’s get you armed.”

The first thing he handed her was a gun, without even looking at her, and she took it from him without hesitation. They both knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it, but it was better, in Ricardo’s opinion, to be over-armed than under-armed. Unless, of course, you were pitching in a game of softball.

“So, Riley, say you’re our hacker, and I’m going in for this meet with you,” he said slowly, studying their options. “What are you going to do to make sure I’m not going to kill you?”

“Run you through a metal and electronics detector the second you come through the door—and not tell you, of course,” Riley began instantly, and Ricardo kept his eyes on the table in front of him, slowly reaching out and starting to move items around. “If I'm super paranoid, it'll be a backscatter scan, but that takes serious juice, and we'd know if he had one of those by now. Then I'm going to presume you're armed and ask you nicely to surrender your weapons after I demonstrate that the area is safe.”

“And if I don’t give it up?”

“I’ll be armed, too, obviously,” Riley scoffed. “Our business would be over before it started and you’d walk away with nothing but your life.”

“Okay,” Ricardo nodded, still rearranging the display. “Would you have backup with you? Would you do a pat down?”

“Pat down maybe,” Riley admitted. “But I’m more likely to depend on my tech. And hackers tend to be fairly solitary. Besides, we would have seen evidence of another person there by now.”

“Gotcha,” he sounded thoughtful. “So, you’re satisfied I don’t have any weapons. Then what?”

“Then I'll probably take you to a second room, which will either be a Faraday cage—but unlikely, since that would kill all  _ my _ tech, too—or a room full of jammers to make your electronics useless without destroying them.”

Ricardo finally looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “You know, this is sounding more and more like the worst idea ever.”

“Seems to be the general consensus, yeah,” Riley smiled sheepishly. Ricardo sighed and shook his head, turning back to the table. Most of the weapons, he’d moved off to the left hand side. Only a select few remained on the right: The ones that they might be able to smuggle in. Ricardo rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m gonna be honest, Riley,” he sighed. “I don’t like it.”

“Nobody does,” Riley shrugged. “But it’s our best bet.”

“I know that,” Ricardo nodded. “Believe me, I know that. But I just want it on record that I don’t like it.”

“Noted,” Riley chuckled, and Ricardo shot her a small smile. Then he surveyed their options: a handful of ceramic knives and two small plastic pistols. He let out a sigh.

“Alright. Here we go.” He began distributing the weapons, passing one pistol to Riley, followed by two small ceramic knives. They were in unspoken agreement that that was all she could manage to hide. Ramirez was left with three ceramic knives and the other plastic pistol. The pistol he tucked behind the small of his back beside a metal gun that he'd all but accepted he was going to have to relinquish. Then he attached one knife to his left forearm and affixed another to the inside of his right boot. The last knife he concealed in a silver belt buckle with a cross design on it.

"I think that should do it," Ricardo smiled, making sure his belt buckle was in place. “You all set?”

Riley nodded at the same time Simmons walked in. He was dressed in full tac gear, and he looked them over appraisingly.

“Well, don’t you two just look like the cutest couple,” he teased slightly. Then he sobered a bit. “You guys ready for this?”

“As we’ll ever be,” Ricardo replied with an easy shrug and a goofy grin. Simmons looked down at the weapons table.

“How many did you two manage to get?” he asked.

“I’ve got five including the gun that will definitely be taken from me,” Ricardo replied. “Managed to get Riley four.”

“Suppose it’ll have to do,” Simmons grumbled. “I’ve got tac moving into position. If you leave now, they should only get there a few minutes before you. I’d still prefer if we could get closer...”

“Yeah, I get it, Grant; you don’t like it,” Riley rolled her eyes. Ricardo scoffed with a mischievous smirk and settled his arm around Riley’s waist.

“C’mon, babe,” he gave his team lead a faux dirty look as Riley tried to hold back a laugh. “We don’t need this kind of unrelenting negativity in our lives. Let’s get out of here.”

“Great idea,” Riley agreed. The pair strolled past the team lead with their heads held high, and Simmons let out a breathy chuckle.

“You’re a pain in my ass, Ramirez,” the team lead called after him.

“But you love me anyway,” Ricardo shouted back, throwing up a peace sign with his free hand and never once looking back.

They kept up the act until they were out of sight, at which point they both burst out laughing.

“C’mon,” Ramirez jerked his head and led them to their ride. Cassidy Todd was headed home after a long shift with her own tac team, and she had so graciously agreed to give them a ride to the bar from which they would be taken to their meeting. They spent the ride engaged in pleasant conversation, getting into character, and then they stepped out onto the sidewalk outside Anton’s Bar as Todd drove away. The bar was just starting to fill up, but they didn’t have time to head inside; according to Riley’s phone, their ride was going to be there in just a few minutes.

“Hey,” the analyst got his attention and pulled out her phone. “Let’s document the occasion.”

The tac agent chuckled, crouching a bit to get into frame with her and making first a goofy face and then a genuine smile, holding her close as she took their picture twice, making sure to get the bar’s sign in there.

“Perfect!” she laughed, looking at the two images. Then she turned to him. "Here," she handed him a pair of the ingenious mini coms devices she'd created.

"Sick," Ricardo grinned, quickly putting them in his ears and plugging them into his phone. Once he was sure they were working, he spoke up. "Alright, check one-two; everyone's favorite tac agent checking in!"

"Really?" His teammate, Aaron Dixon, replied quickly. "Jada, what happened to your voice?"

He heard laughter over coms, and beside him, Riley stifled a chuckle.

"That's cold, Aaron," Ricardo chastised with a mock-hurt expression. "I'm gonna remember that."

"I'm shaking in my boots," Dixon teased.

“Let’s stay on task, people,” Matty broke in, but there was a smile in her voice. "Riley, you hear us?"

"Loud and clear," the analyst confirmed.

"Both of you keep your guard up in there," Webber ordered, her discomfort with the whole situation well-masked to all but the most attentive ears.

"Don't worry, boss," Ricardo grinned. "I'll have her back by eleven."

"Ten," Simmons countered as Jada chuckled quietly.

"10:30," Ricardo compromised.

"Fine. Now both of you, wear your seatbelts."

Both agents laughed quietly and promised to do so, and at that moment, their Uber pulled up to the curb and called over to them. The pair slid into the backseat, and then they were off.

They arrived in about forty-five minutes, and their driver pulled off to the side to let them out.

"Thanks for the ride, man," Ricardo grinned, handing over a tip as he followed Riley out.

"No problem."

Ricardo stepped out onto the sidewalk and closed the door, removing his earbuds and slipping his arm around Riley as the car drove away.

"Ready?" He asked, dropping his eyes down to meet hers. Riley took a breath, smiled, and nodded.

"Well, alright then," he chuckled, squeezing her to his side and kissing the top of her head before he stage-whispered, "Now, try to act like you're into me."

Riley laughed at that one, shoving him playfully, and then she put her arm around his back and settled her hand in his back pocket. Ricardo smirked, and then, at last, the two of them strolled into the building.

They'd had enough time to do basic recon of the building, and the first thing Ramirez noticed was that two of the doors had been moved. The second thing he noticed was that the cardboard cutouts of a Stormtrooper and a Cylon that were flanking the front door were at least twice as thick as normal cardboard cutouts.

But most of the other things jived with what he'd been expecting. A Radio Shack had unprotected sex with a pawn shop. Waist-high counters lined the two interior walls, poorly lit and filled with every possible kind of electronic device. The shelves in the middle of the floor were five feet, the typical steel and where the much less expensive crap was displayed. They were also lined up diagonally with the counters, a typical security move so that the employees could remain behind the counter but still easily spot shoplifting.

It also gave said employees a significant advantage in a gunfight, if it came to that. Ricardo didn't like it one bit.

Riley, too, was surveying the store, and the turn of her upper lip expressed her distaste. She used the hand in his pocket to steer him towards the only visible employee, a pimply-faced teen who was watching his phone far too intently to notice them. Riley parked them directly across the counter from him, gave it a two-count, then removed her hand from his person and casually pulled out her phone. Ramirez didn't see what she did, but after about five seconds the teen was suddenly jolted out of his trance, scowling at his phone while he tried to get the picture to rotate from landscape to portrait.

"The fuck?" he demanded, apparently rhetorically, and Ramirez didn't bother to hide his smirk when Riley simply tucked her phone back into her jacket pocket. Only then did he seem to notice he had customers, and the annoyance on his pockmarked face instantly fell away to stunned surprise, followed by a cocky smile.

"And how may I be of service to you?" He put unnecessary inflection on the word 'service' and Ramirez put together what he'd been watching on the phone.

Ricardo was about to take him to task for it when Riley's hand crept back into his pocket. "You can't, little dude. I have an appointment with your boss."

“What makes you think I’m not the boss?” the teen leaned on the counter and smirked at her, and Ricardo couldn’t help but choke on his own laughter, causing the employee’s eyes to flick to him with a scowl.

“Do you want me to answer that honestly?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

The teen just glared, then straightened up, stalked over to a door marked ‘Employees Only’, and vanished through it. A few seconds later, he came back out—still glaring—followed by a man of about thirty. He was a bit shorter than Ramirez, maybe just a hair under six feet tall, with light brown hair and brown eyes. His skin was slightly tanned, as if he did in fact manage to get outside every once in a while, but he was barely a step above pasty. The man smiled widely at Riley, but his smile faltered a bit when he saw Ricardo, and the tac agent thought he saw the tiniest spark of anger when he saw that Riley had her hand settled in his back pocket. Instantly, he was on high alert.

Still, the man managed to keep his smile as he approached them and his employee resumed his previous position, pointedly tuning them out.

"I take it you must be Artemis," the man said quietly, his eyes locked on Riley. She neither confirmed nor denied his assertion, simply offering a half-smile. The man grinned again, staring at her just a bit too long for Ricardo's liking before he tore his attention away and addressed the tac agent.

"And that would make you...?"

"Not the person you should be paying attention to," Riley pointed out tartly, before Ramirez had time to say a word. "We're here to talk shop with an artist, and..." She trailed off, glancing distastefully at the counter. "This isn't art."

He refocused on her instantly, and the charm was back in place as though it had never slipped. "What, you think this one of B4ndzz's elaborate pranks?"

Riley hadn't said anything to Ricardo about a secret codeword or anything else, really, but she relaxed slightly against him, as if this guy had passed some sort of test. "Wouldn't be the first."

The other hacker inclined his head. "I assure you, you're in the right place. Now, is this gentleman someone I should recognize?" His tone trailed off into something faintly condescending, and Ramirez had the distinct impression he was standing beside two pureblood wizards and being called out as a Muggle.

That was fine. The more he was underestimated, the better. "Her boyfriend," Ricardo replied with an edge in his tone, a tension in his normally easygoing smile. "We came from dinner, so I'm just along for the ride."

He wrapped his arm just a bit tighter around Riley's waist, and the two men stared at each other for a couple seconds, sizing each other up, before finally, their host broke first, chuckling softly.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, boyfriend," he said, as though conceding, and extended a hand towards him. Ricardo hesitated, having no desire to shake his hand, but Riley bumped his hip and shot him a look that said 'play nice.' The tac agent sighed through his nose, then forced a smile and grasped the other man's hand firmly. Admittedly, a little more firmly than necessary, and he smirked when the other man flinched just slightly. When their host—R34mer22, presumably—released him, he once again focused in on Riley.

"If you'll both follow me," he gestured towards the Employees Only door he'd emerged from and led the way inside. Ricardo made sure to keep himself between him and Riley at all times.

The room they found themselves in was quite small, and appeared to be some sort of break room. It had a few open mesh lockers on one side—though with sophisticated locks—a sink, a small round table with a couple of chairs, a fridge, and a microwave. On their right looked like the employee bathroom, and along the back wall, through a doorway, was a set of enclosed stairs leading up. There was a small hallway under the stairs that led to the emergency exit. Ramirez clocked two cameras. Their host stopped and turned to them.

"Before we go any further, I think it's best if you both drop your weapons in an empty locker for safe keeping," he said with a charming smile at Riley and a strained one directed at Ricardo.

Riley raised an eyebrow. "Do you now."

The other hacker gestured to one of the cameras. "You're welcome to scope out the system, but I assure you, you're in the safest room in LA."

Davis had previously warned him about this, so Ricardo was expecting it, yet Riley huffed an impatient sigh and pulled out her phone, rather than her gun. She scrolled through a few options, then cocked her head and withdrew her arm from his so she could use both hands. After about twenty seconds of whatever she was doing, she pursed her lips.

"Not bad," she conceded, and re-pocketed her phone, using the same motion to free the metal gun from behind her back. She strode over to the bank of lockers, placing it wordlessly in an empty one. Then she turned and looked at Ricardo expectantly. The tac agent frowned at her, and she raised an eyebrow at him. After a couple seconds, he pouted and sighed, fishing out his own metal gun and placing it beside hers. Then, Riley closed the locker and turned back to R34mer22, who was smiling at her. Ricardo was sure, at that point, that he did not like this guy.

“Excellent,” he purred, seeming pleased. “Right this way.”

He led the way through the doorway to the stairs, and Ricardo followed first, still very much on high alert even as he kept his posture relatively relaxed. There was a door at the top of the stairs that was secured by a keypad. Their host blocked the pad with his body and typed in a code, causing the door to obediently open. He motioned for them to head inside, standing on the landing and holding the door for them. Ricardo narrowed his eyes slightly at the man; this just felt like an easy way to separate them. The stairwell was too narrow for them to walk up side-by-side, so it would be all too easy to lock one of them—namely him—in while keeping the other—Riley—out. Was he giving the nerd more credit than he deserved? Maybe. But pretty much the only thing they knew about this guy was that he either had previously worked with or was still currently working with Murdoc. Best not to take chances.

Without looking away, Ramirez reached his hand back for Riley. She didn't say a word, but quickly slipped her hand into his, interlocking their fingers, and the tac agent held on tight. He smirked at the slight falter in their host's smile, then climbed up the last couple stairs and stepped into the room.

Where the rest of the building seemed like a rundown late-90's nightmare, this room looked like an immaculate technological utopia. Clean, contemporary lines on all the furniture and displays, sitting atop a beautiful hickory wood floor not at all out of place with the brushed aluminum and nickel. The tech was neatly organized and tastefully displayed in a near cousin to some of their flashiest Phoenix labs. He half expected some slick Sparky knock-off to float forward and take his drink order. Ricardo honestly had no idea what most of it was, and didn't bother to try to riddle it out. Instead, he assessed the room itself.

It was larger than the break room below, and had museum-quality lighting. There were several workstations around the perimeter with unfinished gadgets, and a rolling standing desk in the middle with several monitors—all brushed nickel. A short, more dimly-lit hallway branched off from the room, and at the end of that hallway, he saw a glowing exit sign. It probably went out to the fire escape, if he recalled the building plans correctly.

No cameras up here, though, at least none that were readily obvious—not even on the laptops. No tactically arranged tables, no indication of any kind of hidden compartments or any other defensive or offensive capability. It legitimately looked like a cross between a show-room and a workshop. If he was being honest, Ricardo wasn't entirely sure what he was looking at, but Riley seemed impressed.

"Nice digs," she commented, and then both agents whipped around when they heard the stairwell door bolt shut behind them. Their host seemed startled for a second. Then he laughed softly.

"Sorry," he apologized, holding up his hands. "Automatic locks. I don't want just anyone walking in here, obviously."

_ Or anyone walking out _ , Ricardo thought, his heart pounding even though he made a point to relax his body. Riley's hand was still in his; he'd probably almost crushed her fingers, and he squeezed her back gently, once, in apology. She did the same, then reluctantly straightened hers, giving him no choice but to let her go.

However, she stepped around him only to lay that same hand lightly on his chest, tracing a little design over his still-pounding heart. "Bae, he and I need to talk shop. Why don't you work on that high score of yours? Shouldn't take us more than," and she glanced over her shoulder with an evaluative look, "ten minutes?"

The man gave a theatrical wince. "Ouch," he added, his voice full of humor. "Let's see if I can surprise you."

"Yeah, not a fan of those," she told him, but she did turn to face him, her nails trailing lightly across Ricardo's chest. Then she was crossing the room to the table that seemed to contain small, common bric-a-brac. Still loathe to take his eyes off her, Ramirez reluctantly fished his normal-looking earphones out of his pocket and stuck one in his right ear, triggering the hidden com.

For a moment, he wasn't sure it had worked, and he idly flicked through his phone, settling on Shadowgun Legends. It was supposed to be a signal, but he could see that he had zero bars, and Ramirez forced himself to take a deep breath and relax.

Just mindlessly shooting robots, nothing to see here.

The other hacker was definitely laying on the charm, seeing as she'd given him a ten minute time limit to woo her with his amazing technology, and Ramirez let his eyes wander the room again, taking another deep, slow breath to try to get that remaining tightness in his chest to settle out. He felt at least thirty percent better when a voice came through his earpod, exactly the way Riley said it would.

"Ramirez, audio on you and Riley is still coming through five by five."

"Fuck yeah!" he muttered, thumbs mashing viciously on his phone, and he saw Riley glance back at him with a fond little smirk. Her hacker friend immediately redirected her gaze to something apparently quite small, and Simmons stayed quiet in his ear, apparently listening.

As soon as Davis had what she wanted, she was going to declare that she wanted some pie—apparently a raspberry pie was actually slang for some kind of relatively small technology—so Ricardo kept his free ear tuned to the pitch of her voice. The dude was trying to get her to laugh but she wasn't biting, and several times the other hacker's head came up, as if she'd surprised him. However, his answers were always prompt, he never tried to touch her, and Ramirez never heard the distress word.

Tapas. If she wanted to go for tapas, that was their cue that it had all gone belly up and tac would be on them in forty seconds, given the solid thunk that door had made when it locked. Cutting power would cut the electromagnet, and the deadbolt would give with sheer old-fashioned force. Ramirez leaned casually on one of the displays, turning back more towards the door, and for a split second, he couldn't seem to focus on it.

Ricardo took another deep breath, but this time the tightness in his chest didn't release. He blinked a couple of times, staring hard at the door, and he was able to force it back into focus.

Something was wrong.

Whatever it was, it wasn't affecting Riley. She was on chunk heels, not stilettos, but her balance was absolutely fine, her hand was perfectly steady when she reached into a display case mounted on the wall and selected a man's watch. Beside her, their target's laugh and breath were easy.

Not gas.

Ramirez started cataloging everything they'd touched since they'd entered the shop, even as he began making his way across the room. Riley touched the locker. This guy got the door, and the door before that. Ricardo had kept a hand on Riley, he'd—

He'd shaken the target's hand, but hadn't noticed anything slick or painful, and even as he tucked his phone into his pocket, as an excuse to free up the plastic gun, he realized the pads of his fingers were burning.

So was his chest, where Riley had touched him. He could feel the muscle shirt shifting and the fabric felt hot and rough. The band around his lungs tightened further.

Nerve agent, fast acting. He was going down. Imminently.

"Babe, I could go for some tapas," he announced clearly. Or at least he thought he did. Riley's head whipped towards him, but her eyes were on the hacker beside her, and he shot her an apologetic look just as she stiffened in shock. In literal shock; Ricardo had seen the results of getting tazed too many times not to recognize it happening right in front of him.

The goddamned watch.

Ramirez felt his fingers close around his gun but somehow he couldn't grasp it, and he realized that he was only going to be conscious for a few more seconds. He used those to lurch towards the hacker empty-handed, which it seemed he hadn't expected. The guy backpedaled, but Ricardo was able to bridge the distance and close his numb right hand around the guy's face like a basketball. He tried to force them both against one of the brushed nickel displays, tried to crack the guy's head open, but the display was on wheels and he missed the corner by inches. Once they were down on the hardwood floor, Ricardo was unable to do anything more coordinated than use his own dead weight and heavy limbs as an obstacle that bought Phoenix tac another precious few seconds.

Beside them, Riley crashed to the hardwood. For a split second, their eyes met, but he wasn't certain she was still conscious; he couldn't focus on her face. Couldn't focus on anything. His skin was on fire, and he was trying to gasp through a waterlogged pillowcase. The hacker squirmed out from beneath him, shoving him off, and then Riley's boneless body was pulled upwards by her arms, and the agonizing burn blurred out everything else.

* * *

"If you'll both follow me."

Grant Simmons was seated in the driver's seat of the heavily tinted SUV, staring at nothing as he strained to hear even the faintest background sound, and beside him, Dixon shifted restlessly. If anything was going to happen to their coms, it was going to be now. Riley had said, once they went through that second door, bugs and weapons would have to go.

Moment of truth.

There was the hiss of cloth moving, then a door closed. Then just quiet hissing.

Habit, long groomed from tense ops, kept his breathing slow and even, kept his the muscles in his jaw relaxed. If they didn't get back sound in five seconds, he was calling it and both Davis and Ramirez knew it.

And while the quiet hiss didn't dissipate, they clearly heard a voice over it. "Before we go any further, I think it's best if you both drop your weapons in an empty locker for safe keeping."

Dixon stared at him expectantly, and Grant shook his head. "All teams, hold position." Unless he made them cough up the plastics and the ceramics, they were going to wait for Davis to signal.

"Do you now?" Davis sounded like her normal sarcastic self.

"You're welcome to scope out the system, but I assure you, you're in the safest room in LA."

That was total bullshit, and Phoenix had more than proven that over the past few months.

They heard someone sigh—probably Riley—and some kind of repetitive sound. Almost half a minute went by. "Not bad," Davis conceded, and there was some rustling and a few solid thuds—probably guns. Then the whine of metal on metal, and the sound of a locker closing. So the weapons they'd turned over were off limits, at least temporarily.

"Excellent." It was almost a purr, and it put Simmons' teeth on edge. Putting this guy in cuffs was going to be a real pleasure. "Right this way."

Tac—and the director, back at Phoenix—all listened silently as three people climbed a flight of stairs. Behind Dixon, Jada Navarro was keeping the building schematics up on a tablet, and she brought up the second floor and pinched it bigger, so they knew what they were looking at. Grant eyed the floorplan that he'd already memorized hours ago, and they listened to a faint, high-pitched beeping.

"Number pad." The voice belonged to Agent Keeler. He was stationed at one of the power mains, and Cook on the other, ready to kill both main and redundant power to the building the second Riley gave the word. "Might be battery powered."

"Doesn't matter, an electromagnet lock takes a lot of juice, if he's got a backup battery on it it'll be drained in minutes." Reeves was an ex-Marine and, outside of Dixon, one of the largest men in Phoenix tac. "We'll take it off at the hinges if we have to."

While they all gave MacGyver a hard time about it, he was hardly the only Phoenix agent that blew things up. He just did it more regularly than the rest of them. And typically he didn't use C4 and detonators like normal people.

A door opened, and there was a pregnant pause before the party continued climbing the stairs. The underlying hiss grew louder, almost like they'd walked into a room with a white noise machine, but then they all heard solid footsteps, probably a hard floor, wood or concrete, and a quiet snort.

"Nice digs," Riley complimented, and her voice was still easy to understand over the background noise. It was followed almost immediately by a sudden, deep thwack, and Simmons couldn't help a little twitch.

"Automatic locks, nothing to worry about," the hacker's smooth voice came back. "Your friend can entertain himself with the pinball machine for a few minutes while we talk about your needs."

Navarro made a very unladylike sound. "Riley's gonna scroat this guy before we ever get a chance."

Apparently Davis had given him one hell of a look, because Ramirez remarkably let that comment pass, and after a few minutes they heard a pinball machine start up. It was a little distracting, but Riley's voice was still easily heard. "So tell me about these little beauties."

Still no hint of tension or fear in her voice, and Simmons knew Ricardo would never have walked over to a game without using it as an excuse to pop in his earbuds. "Ramirez, audio on you and Riley is still coming through five by five."

"Well, these little guys are good for all sorts of things. For example," and then the hacker's voice seemed to get louder, as if he was closer, "I can place one in a beaded necklace, and hear the entire evening conversation from a sixty-inch table."

"So they're omnis." Riley made an appreciative noise. "What's the bit rate?"

Their host hummed. "Basically whatever you need it to be. You can daisy chain the batteries, and it'll power through however—and wherever—you want it to."

Dixon's lips turned up. "Christ," he muttered, "is this guy for real?"

"Guess he doesn't get out much," Navarro agreed. "Though between Davis and Murdoc, she's the much better looking customer."

Even though both of them had muted their coms, Grant gave his teammates a look, and they cut out the excess chatter. If Riley wanted to let their little Cassanova sing to her, that was a solid choice. He was more likely to reveal something boasting than he was if she played it standoffish. Besides, the pinball machine was dinging and clicking away in the background, and there was no way in hell Ricardo wouldn't have stepped in if Davis had shown even the slightest hesitation or fear.

And while Simmons didn't know gigahertz from ghosting, he didn't hear either of the words they were listening for. When Riley said she wanted a slice of pie, they were to move in and make the arrest. If she said she wanted tapas, they were to move in and shoot anything that moved.

"Let's say I wanted an order of a hundred," Riley finally offered. "What kinda coin would that run me?"

"A hundred?" Their hacker gave a surprised little laugh. "What's a nice thing like you gonna do with a hundred of these?"

Which was a good question. Murdoc's purchase had been only a few dozen. And while Simmons appreciated Ramirez letting Riley run it her way, they were wasting time.

Webber clearly felt the same. "Tell Riley to stop flirting and get to the point!"

"The usual," Riley said, at almost the exact same moment. "Dig up a little dirt, make a few bucks."

"Well." Simmons remained perfectly still, listening. Now they were getting somewhere. "I can tell you they have a lot of very sexy features." There was the sound of fabric rustling, but Simmons couldn't make out exactly what it was. "The compression rate on recordings is damn near criminal. They'll store hours of data before transmitting back, either on a pre-programmed schedule or when momma pings them. Because the audio's so compressed, you can store entire libraries—if you have the companion software, of course." He laughed at his own joke.

"Yeah, we already know they can do that," Dixon growled, and Grant listened closely to the pinball machine. Libraries of recordings are what had allowed Murdoc to fake Mark Kyser's voice, and lure MacGyver to what had turned out to be damn near his own death. Ramirez hadn't taken the implied threat on his partner so well.

But the gameplay remained steady. Either Ramirez couldn't hear them, or he was keeping a tight lid on it.

"Of course," Riley agreed readily, and just a bit breathily. "What else can they do?"

"Each one contains a kinetic charger. They can power themselves, if you place them on something in motion." More fabric rustling—it almost sounded like someone was running their hand up Riley's jacketed arm. "Give them a little friction now and then, and they'll keep going indefinitely."

With a line like that, there was no way Ramirez would be letting the hacker touch Davis, but the pinball game kept going like nothing was happening.

"Ramirez, if you copy, clear your throat," Simmons ordered, over coms, even as Riley gave an amused hum.

"Nice line, but do they really work? You got any...satisfied customers leaving five star reviews?"

There was a low chuckle, but it wasn't Ramirez, and the agent didn't make a sound. Simmons gave him a five count.

"Ramirez, that's an order," Matty snapped.

"Yeah, of course," their target bragged. "Plenty of them. Well, I shouldn't say plenty, this tech isn't just available to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along. Wouldn't want the wrong people getting wind of my little setup, now would I?"

"Webber, something's off," Reeves growled, over coms. "They can't hear us."

But it was more than that. Ramirez would not be idly playing pinball. And that last line about the wrong people—

"We need to pull them out right now," Simmons growled, locking eyes with Dixon and Jada. Both agents gave him an immediate nod.

"Do it." It was Webber, and it was clipped.

"All units, all units, move in." Simmons was already halfway out of the car. "Cook, Keeler, cut power on my mark." Grant and his team were very obvious in the street in their tac gear, but it was after dark and the streets were, as predicted, pretty empty. Simmons sprinted for the building—his team was lucky enough to have the front door—and when he was within about five strides he counted it down.

"Two, one, mark."

Right about the time he got his fingers on the door lever, power died for a ten block radius. The door opened easily, and Simmons held it open as Dixon and Navarro stormed the shop.

Matty didn't need a cue from him to try to re-establish coms with her agents. "Riley, Ramirez, do you copy?"

There was only one target visible, the shop's teenaged employee, who took one look at the tacked-up agents with flashlights and guns and disappeared behind the counter. Navarro nimbly leapt it and pounced on him before he could do more than squeak, and Grant left her to it, signaling at the door Davis and Ramirez had gone through with two fingers. Dixon tried the handle, but apparently it didn't give, and the ex-SEAL wasted no time in kicking it down.

In that time, neither Riley nor Ramirez responded. Simmons didn't hear anything from them at all.

The room they found themselves in looked like an employee breakroom, quite small, and the tactical light on his rifle quickly found a grated locker with two firearms inside. There was a bathroom, quickly cleared, and then he and Dixon had their choice between the first floor emergency exit, and a flight of stairs. Dixon took them two at a time, knowing that kicking the door down had destroyed any element of surprise.

On coms, Simmons became aware of a rhythmic clicking sound.

It turned out the magnetic lock at the top of the door was still completely operational, and the ex-SEAL slapped two shaped charges where the hinges ought to be. Simmons hustled down about half the stairs, covering the ear closest to the blast, and then Dixon was on his shoulder, and the explosives detonated. The pop was loud in the small, enclosed stairwell, and the door didn't fall in, not until Dixon shouldered it out of the way.

Their tac lights picked up a shiny showroom, filled with reflective metal and glass. That ticking sound he heard on coms was more pronounced, and they'd fanned out into the room before Simmons spotted the source.

Ricardo Ramirez was face down near one of the displays. The clicking sound was coming from him. The room was otherwise empty of other humans.

Dixon headed immediately down a short hallway where a red emergency exit sign was lit, which would lead him to the fire escape and Bravo team. Simmons went to their downed agent.

"Ricardo—" he started, and he grabbed the man's tense shoulder and turned him over.

Ramirez stared blankly up at him, white foam coming from both his mouth and nose. The clicking sound was him, he was making it in his throat, and Grant realized it was a seizure.

"Agent down, second floor, send paramedics and hazmat!"

His pulse was present but racing, and his pupils were blown, even with a tac light shining right into them. It was a nerve agent, whatever it was he and Dixon were already exposed, and Simmons looked up sharply when he heard the fire exit door slam open, and the other agent made it out onto the fire escape.

"...clear!"

"This is Bravo team, alley and parking garage are clear!"

"Charlie team, north side is clear!"

Which was impossible. They had to be somewhere.

"Navarro, is your suspect in custody?!"

Coms were only quiet a moment. "Yessir—"

"Check for a basement entrance, crawlspace, anything." It wasn't on any of the plans, but if they didn't go up they had to have gone down. Simmons rolled his muscle-locked agent onto his side, recovery position, and tried to clear the foam cone from his nose and mouth. "Ramirez, buddy, if you can hear me, just relax. EMTs are on the way. Breathe, man. Keep tryin'a breathe."

Dixon sprinted back into the room, out of breath. "No sign of 'em," he reported, dropping to a knee beside his stricken teammate. "Is he—" But then realization set in, and Dixon pulled back his hand.

Grant fixed him with a grim look. "I don't know," he replied. "But there must be an antidote in here, he would have given one to Riley. Find it. Fast."

* * *

Waking up took a while.

She first figured out she was asleep when something tickled her nose and she clumsily rubbed her face against the pillow in annoyance until it went away. A few hours slipped blissfully by before it happened again, and she rolled her head in the other direction in the hopes of escaping whatever hair had gotten loose.

She discovered she was on her back, arms thrown carelessly over her head, and she was the absolute perfect temperature, so she decided to grab another hour. No alarm meant no reason to get up.

No alarms. No work. No tac team knocking on her door with coffee.

...usually they brought her coffee.

Riley groaned and squeezed her eyes shut more tightly. No. She deserved the day off, they had that lead, they had—

Riley's eyes slowly opened.

She was actually lying in a bed. A very comfortable bed, with bright white sheets and a light comforter. They smelled like lavender. She picked up her head, totally confused, taking in the upscale hotel room, the blackout curtain pulled back but the blinds letting in just the glow of late morning sun. Riley pulled her right arm toward herself, intending to sit up, and found it tangled in something.

That something turned out to be soft, thick white leather bondage cuffs, attached to straps that disappeared behind the headboard of the California king. Which, she saw after a moment, was a good seven inches off the wall.

Still, even seeing it didn't seem to shock her. Her heartbeat was absolutely steady; she didn't feel the cold rush of adrenaline, didn't start hyperventilating. She shifted her legs under the sheets, finding them similarly bound, and noticed that she was wearing one of her grey convention tees, with the neck ripped out.

It was one of her favorite sleeping shirts.

She was wearing her own pajamas. In a mystery hotel room, right after—

They'd been talking about the bugs, she'd picked up a watch he recommended for her 'boyfriend.' Ramirez had suggested they get tapas, that was the distress word and he should've—

But she couldn't remember what happened next.

Or how she ended up tied to a hotel bed.

Riley swallowed, and found that outside of a dry mouth, she could. No gag.

That was about all the exploring she managed before the double doors, opposite the foot of the bed, swept open and revealed none other than R34mer22. He was also dressed down, cotton pajama pants and a satirical tee, and he was carrying a tray containing, at minimum, a glass of orange juice and a vase holding a red rose.

"You're awake." His voice was hushed and calm, but he sounded pleased.

Riley swallowed and spoke. "What. The fuck. Is this."

The man grinned at her. "This, Artemis, is the first day of the rest of your life." He kicked one of the doors shut with the heel of his bare foot, and brought the tray over to one of the two nightstands flanking the enormous bed. There was no way in hell she could reach either one. When he set it down she saw that it did also contain a breakfast, and there were two crystal champagne flutes, lying sideways on the tray.

He followed her gaze. "I figure you're starving, you probably didn't eat dinner last night—"

"We did," she said automatically, and her voice was eerily calm. "Before we—"

He waved her off. "It's okay, Artemis. I know everything." He tapped the right side of his skull, just in front of his ear. "Been listening to you guys for months."

She stared at him, not quite understanding, and his grin grew warmer as he sat down on the edge of the bed, getting comfortable. "Especially you," he confessed, blushing. "God, Riley—do you mind if I call you that?—they don't value you at all. Not the way you should be. They have no idea what you're capable of, do they."

She shook off the flattery like it was a fly. "What do you mean, you've been listening?" He sold the hardware to Murdoc, but—maybe he'd also been the one to put together those voice composites, the ones Murdoc had used to lure Mac out of hiding—

He gave her a playful smirk. "I mean I've been listening. Listening to every word all of you say. And what you don't," he added, dropping his eyes to the comforter. He picked at the edge, as if waiting for her response.

And she had no response to that. So he was listening. He was the one who'd put together the audio, he was the one listening to the bugs. It wasn't just the tech, it wasn't just the thing with Kyser.

He was working with Murdoc. He was still working for Murdoc. He'd just kidnapped her for Murdoc's next little test. They were partners.

Riley slowly shook her head. It made so much sense. Murdoc would need this kind of tech to track down his Collective, he'd need the same kinda intel they had to even know where Clayton had been—

"You still have us bugged." And the moment she said it, she knew it was true.

His smirk broadened once again. "Yeah, I still got you bugged," he confirmed proudly. "I did my homework. That op you pulled on Bedlam74, that was sheer fuckin' genius. That bug that only activated when you pointed microwaves at it." He turned to her, genuinely excited. "It took a second to miniaturize the design, but I did it. Beiber's had it on him this whole time."

And somehow, Riley still didn't feel anything. No terror. No anger. She understood everything that was happening, and had virtually no emotional response.

"You drugged me," she accused, and then he stood and busied himself with the breakfast tray.

"I did, but it should be wearing off soon," he finally admitted, shuffling the flatware around on a plate of scrambled eggs. "I just...I wanted you calm. He's gotten you so anxious, so off your game, I just...I wanted our first meeting to be...just us. Natural, you know?"

First meeting. Like there was going to be another. "Where is he?" Because that was the only other thing that mattered. When was Murdoc going to arrive and pick her up. When was he going to strap her down and—

Finally,  _ finally _ she felt a little lurch in her stomach. He'd said he liked the way she looked, all twisted up in the sheets. What if—

What if this was already it. What if she was just waiting for Mac to show up to kick things off. What if—

What if, like Bozer, Murdoc was going to start long before Mac had a chance to do anything at all. It was morning, Mac might be back in LA by now but after that poison smoke there was no way he could—he could come for her, he could stand up to whatever Murdoc had set up—

There was a clatter as the other hacker slammed the fork down on the plate. "You mean Murdoc?" he asked, his voice stilted. "He's not coming."

And drugs or no, she just couldn't quite make sense of that statement. "Not...coming..."

The other hacker swarmed onto the bed, on his knees, right beside her, and his expression was a weird cross between livid and compassionate. "He's—not—coming," he enunciated each word with a hiss. "He doesn't care about you. You're nothing to him—a means to an end. He doesn't care how unique you are—he only cares that Beiber cares." The hacker reached out a hand, as if to touch her face, and Riley slowly drew back, parallel with his fingers, until he stopped. His expression shifted, and the anger was gone. "He doesn't care about you, Artemis," he repeated softly. "but I do. I do."

She stared at him a moment, still not sure she understood. "You kidnapped me and tied me to a bed." Sticking with the facts seemed safe.

"No, no—I saved you, Artemis. I've saved you," he repeated earnestly, and shifted again, so that he was leaning more on his hip, more beside her instead of looming over her. "He had to leave, as soon as he realized you'd found that bitch Clayton—and the dumbass left all the planning to me. I flagged all his aliases, I made sure he'd get picked up at Customs, made sure facial rec would search for him at bus terminals, train stations, even the border crossings. He had to fuckin' drive, unless he broke land speed records he's probably not even to LA yet." The hacker laughed, like it had only just then occurred to him. "God, I bet he's pissed. But he's not going to find us. The luddite can't."

Riley stared at him, suddenly glad of the drugs. She would definitely have been panicking without them. "You—you  _ turned _ on him?"

The man chuckled, then reached out a finger and traced a lock of her hair, and Riley had already backed as far from him as she could, and had no choice but to permit it. Honestly, she barely felt it, and it didn't bother her half as much as her racing thoughts.

He'd turned on Murdoc. Betrayed him. Kidnapped her and hidden them away in the—the damn honeymoon suite in a five-star hotel. "And you thought...what?" she demanded, finally shaking off his hand. "That I was going to be the grateful damsel and you were going to get laid?"

His eyebrows shot up, but he seemed more amused than upset. "Well, when you say it like that," he murmured suggestively, and reached out to stroke her face again. This time Riley turned away completely, staring at the window. The light was high, it was late morning if not early afternoon, if they were still in LA—

A new thought occurred to her. "What did you do with him? My boyfriend?"

The mention of Ramirez caused the other hacker's hopeful look to sour. "You mean Agent Ramirez?" and he added a sarcastic little head-wiggle when he said it. "Forget about those bugs already, Artemis? And the earbuds were genius, by the way. If you'd added just a little more length to the antenna, you might have actually been able to overpower the jammer."

"My  _ name _ is Riley," she growled, and this time his look of surprise seemed genuine.

"And I'm Brandon. Yates," he added as an afterthought. "It's a real pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Riley." And then he leaned in and kissed her.

She jerked her face away, but the kiss was relatively chaste, and on the cheek. He didn't seem put off by her rejection. "Don't touch me," she snapped. "What did you do to Ramirez?"

Brandon's look turned annoyed, but his sigh was patient. "He's dead," he told her shortly. "Don't worry, it was quick. Two minutes tops. Clayton wasn't Murdoc's favorite, but she left him with a veritable pharmacy."

Dead. Ramirez was dead.

"And the rest of them?" she asked, a little stiltedly. Brandon's annoyance grew.

"Who cares? They couldn't keep you safe anyway. If you hadn't accepted the meet, he was just going to get you during transit. You go to work in the same place, like, every other day, Artemis—Riley," he corrected himself, with a quick headshake. "Even if your destination changes, we know where you're leaving from, and there are only so many routes. Trust me, they weren't keeping you safe. But this?" He waved a hand at the luxurious suite. "Way better than a safehouse, am I right?"

She stared at him. "Well, they don't tie me to a bed," she snapped. "You say you care? Prove it. Let me outta these."

Brandon pressed his lips together, then slowly shook his head. "Now, Riley, I don't know that you fully trust me yet, and even if you do, it's probably the drugs talking. Why don't we—" and he rolled onto his back, reaching for the breakfast plate before pulling himself back up Indian-style beside her, "—eat something and see how it goes."

Riley sarcastically turned one of her wrists—still in restraints. "Kinda hard to use a fork." That she would use to stab this pervert and get the hell out of the room if she could.

He gave her a wide grin. "When was the last time someone treated you to breakfast in bed?" And she realized, belatedly, that he intended to feed her.

"...you used those same drugs on me, didn't you." Whether it was the waning drugs or her own fear, her stomach was starting to tighten up again, and the thought of eggs—fed to her by a creepy rapist or not—was utterly unappealing. And Brandon balked, his head drawing back and the egg-laden fork sagging back towards the plate.

"No! No, of course I haven't poisoned you! This is just...something to take the edge off. Why?" he asked suddenly, his tone sharp. "What do you mean? Do you feel sick?"

"Um...yes," she told him, and she was reasonably sure it was true. "Dude, not that I don't appreciate the save, but there's no way Murdoc's just gonna throw up his hands and say 'oh well, fuck it'." She was starting to regret the use of the phrase 'throw up' there, and she tried to shift up towards the head of the bed. Brandon tossed the plate onto the foot of the bed, closing the distance between them.

"Why," he demanded, but under the annoyance was a real thread of anger, "are you so worried about him?"

Riley just stared at him, almost dumbstruck, and he frowned at her. "Every time it's he's going to find us, or you're underestimating him. How does a piece of shit like Murdoc get so deep under your skin? You're a  _ goddess _ , Riley. You can crush him with twenty keystrokes. He is  _ nothing _ . Murdoc is not going to find us, he couldn't find his way out of a cardboard box with two hands and a flashlight." The hacker gestured at the room. "You think I used a real credit card for this? You think I didn't use one of three dozen aliases he has no idea exist? Murdoc's an assassin, Riley, he's not a hacker. He's analog. We're fiber."

She stared up at him a long moment. "...what do you mean, every time...?" When Brandon rolled his eyes, she became surer. "How many times have we had this conversation...?"

He shook his head, with a smile that had no humor, and for the first time, she actually felt a pang of fear—for him. "And every time you ask that," he growled, and then flung out his hand, and knocked the plate completely off the bed. "That's the third breakfast I've ordered. Hell, by now we've probably moved on to lunch, I wonder how many of those I can fucking order before they start to catch on." He stood on his knees, this time very intentionally using his size and proximity in an attempt to intimidate.

"How can you fucking remember?" he demanded. "You're not supposed to be able to remember!"

She glared up at him, refusing to show a shred of her fear. "I guess your drugs aren't what they're cracked up to be." Part of her wanted to wince at the unintentional pun. "How long have I been here? Have we been here?" she corrected herself, as a flash of anger crossed his face.

"And still him! You just can't get Murdoc out of your head, can you." Now it was a snarl, he wasn't even attempting to be charming. "Let me spell this out for you, Artemis. He's—not—coming. He can't find us. He won't find us. Your team isn't going to find us, Angus fucking MacGyver isn't going to find us. You're not going to end up in that hospital—and by the way, Beiber was never going to be able to get you out alive. Me, now, that setup would be child's play. You are safe with me and it's about time you stopped doubting that and started trusting me!"

Riley slowly pulled her head back, trying vainly to get on the same level with him. "I would trust you a lot more if I wasn't tied up!" she snapped at him. "Dude, do you hear yourself right now?!"

Brandon gave a shout of frustration, and she was certain he was going to hit her. But he didn't; his hands fisted in the comforter. "This is not how I want this to go!" He sucked in a deep breath through his nose. "And now we've come to the part where you start yelling, and I remind you that the honeymoon suites are soundproofed. So the only people who are going to hear me are me and you."

That piece of information sent shards of ice into her gut. She was tied to a bed with a psycho who was trying to hide her from a bigger psycho so he could Stockholm her into some kind of fucked up relationship.

He took several deep breaths through his nose, eyes tightly closed, and Riley glanced around the room for anything she could use to get away. There was nothing. She was bound wrist and ankle in a bed full of pillows and blankets, and the buckles for the restraints were too far up the straps for her to reach.

He could do this as many times as he wanted. Drug her to sleep, make her forget—

Like the drug Murdoc had left for Bozer. To let him forget.

Riley licked her lips, which suddenly seemed dry. "Okay. Let's just—calm down and figure this out."

A humorless chuckle. "Aaand now we're to the negotiating part. So you know what? Let's negotiate." His eyes popped open, brown and shrewd. "For every favor you want, you're going to give me what I want." He shifted forward, for a second Riley thought he was going to pin her, but instead he shoved himself off the bed, then threw back the covers he'd been sitting on, and slipped under them. Riley squirmed but she had zero leverage, and in seconds he was straddling her hips. Once he got himself situated, he took a deep breath. His exhale blew a few strands of hair from her suddenly hot face, and then he leaned in close, with a hand on either side of her body.

"So," he said, in what he probably thought was a sultry voice, "if you want out of those, you're going to have to do something for me." He pressed himself against her, making it quite clear what that something was, and Riley somehow found the courage to give him a bitter smile.

"Just what do you think you're going to accomplish with that?" she asked tartly, tilting her head to the side. He sneered at her, moving in just close enough, and while her wrists and ankles were bound, her head was not. She head-butted him, just like Jack taught her, aiming the hairline of her forehead at his nose, and she hit him dead on.

Brandon howled and fell back onto his butt, crushing down on her upper thighs, but Riley was still able to angle one where she needed it, and sacrificed some of the ground she'd won sitting up to make sure she could bend her knee. The howl quickly turned into retching, and she was able to tip him off herself. Of course, she had nowhere to go, and Riley pushed herself as close to the headboard as she could get.

"Help!  _ Help _ !" she screamed, even as Brandon tried to uncurl himself, tried to reach for her. She got a few good cries in before his hand groped its way up her chest to her throat, and then he cut off her air.

Hackers were in general pretty scrawny and not terribly physically capable—but the one place that stereotype broke down was their hands. That many hours of typing and gaming gave them powerful and nimble fingers and wrists. He might have been green and shaking, blood dripping from his nose, but his hand was still plenty strong, and then he dragged himself back up her body, and his other hand joined the first.

"You—can't tell the difference—between him and—salvation, can you," Brandon snarled, tightening his grip even as she struggled beneath him. "Maybe if you—wake up in a little—pain next time—your head'll be—in a better place—"

He was going to choke her unconscious, and then drug her. Make her forget. She was going to wake up again, still tied to this bed, but the next time—

Riley opened her mouth but she couldn't form words, and he was past reason. Her peripheral vision was already gone, and she had just enough of the calming drugs left in her system to watch almost detachedly as spots of nothingness danced across what remained of her field of vision.

"—and then—you'll feel a little—more gratitude for what—I'm trying to do—what I've risked—"

His hands tightened further as he curled in on himself, another wave of the pain she'd caused, and Riley realized that he wasn't paying attention to her anymore. He was so consumed with his own discomfort that he wasn't going to realize she'd already passed out, that she couldn't breathe—

The hands around her throat tightened spasmodically, then loosened, and he threw himself down on top of her.

Riley didn't care at first; all that mattered was breathing, sucking down welcome cold air through her bruised trachea. She coughed a couple times, it was hard with his weight laying atop her, but he didn't move. Didn't cop a feel, didn't so much as pick up his head from where it had fallen, face-first onto the pillow beside her. Riley tried to pull away from him, but the side of his face was sweaty and sticky against hers.

She gulped down a few more breaths, still not sure what was going on, and then she realized that a figure was standing in the half of the bedroom doorway that he hadn't closed.

A figure in black, head to toe, including the all-black pistol in his hand, with an elongated barrel.

Murdoc gave her a whoops look. "Sorry to have ruined what looks like a  _ wonderful _ breakfast in bed."

Riley just stared at him.  _ I am already unconscious and dreaming. This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare, this is the drugs, this isn't happening. _

The killer cocked his head to the side. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" He tutted as he entered the room, his black boots soundless on the thick carpeting. "It's not the first dead man you've had between your legs, and I daresay it won't be the last."

She tore her eyes off the approaching assassin to try to get a look at Brandon, but Murdoc was right. He was dead weight. His face was beside her right ear, but she couldn't hear him breathing.

Murdoc had shot him.

And the killer wasted no time in grabbing him by the collar of his teeshirt and dragging him off her, so that his face dragged over her chest, smearing her ex-favorite sleeping shirt with blood from his broken nose and the bullethole she carefully didn't look for. His body tumbled to the ground and Murdoc kicked it over, as if looking for something. Without blinking, his dark eyes cut back to her.

"What did he tell you?"

Riley swallowed down her stomach's weak attempt to puke, and Murdoc gave her a slight frown.

"What did he do...?" The assassin trailed off and threw back what was left of the comforter and sheets, that hadn't already been dragged half off the bed with Brandon's body. Riley didn't even bother to look down at herself—she didn't want to know—but luckily the oversized tee hadn't ridden too far up, and then the mattress sank as Murdoc took a seat, right where Brandon had, and leaned in, intently focused on her face.

His eyes flickered with surprise, and then he let loose with a belly-deep laugh. It was so loud and unexpected that she flinched. The assassin shook his head in apology, trying to get a handle on the laughter, and then carelessly set his gun on the nightstand, with a sharp clatter that had her jumping again.

"I'm sorry, I just—oh ho ho, what an asshole," he concluded, actually wiping his eyes, and Riley was completely unable to find her voice. She was tied down to a bed, covered in blood, with Murdoc sitting beside her. This was the worst case scenario. This was what she'd always known was going to happen.

She'd just thought it would be  _ her _ blood.

And then she realized that none of this could possibly have been part of Murdoc's plan. He didn't know Brandon was going to stab him in the back. He didn't know he was going to be pulled away to silence Clayton. He didn't know he was going to have to track them down, kill his hacker—

None of this was his design.

Which meant she still had a chance.

"He drugged you, didn't he?" Murdoc seemed unaware of her mental epiphany, still shaking his head. "That little shit. You're lucky to still be alive, Riley." And as he said it, some of the humor and relief drained away. Then he reached a gloved hand for her face.

Every instinct in her said to pull away from him, to struggle, but she realized that he had no idea how lucid she really was. She hadn't said anything to him, he'd come in seeing her being strangled, but had no idea what had happened before. How heavily drugged she was.

And so she let him touch her. Once the leather hit her skin, neither roughly nor gently, she couldn't help but flinch, and Murdoc gave her what almost looked like a sad smile. He held her jaw in his hand, turning her face so that he could see both of her eyes.

Riley tried to pull her chin out of his grasp, but not hard. Not like she meant it. And the sad smile didn't falter.

"This wasn't your fault," he assured her, his voice creepily soothing. "He was going to die anyway, Riley. I've learned my lesson, you see. You can't count on partners, can't count on teams. I've been lucky enough to survive that lesson, and I'll tell you honestly," and he gusted out a little sigh, his tone regretful, "I don't think you're going to be as fortunate."

She stared at him, too frightened to act, too stunned to give herself away. His thumb traced a line along her jaw.

"And not that you'll remember any of this," he continued, his voice eerily gentle, like he truly wanted her to understand, "but I always liked you, Riley. Such fire, such chutzpah. You really could have been a force of nature." He turned and glanced at the floor, not releasing her face, and Riley fought to remain still, to keep breathing.

"I hadn't planned on firing him quite so soon, but no matter. He's already set up everything he needed to. It's astonishing how much you can learn simply by watching someone, you know?" He turned back to her suddenly, as if expecting her to agree, and Riley tried to pull her chin away unconsciously at the expectant, hungry look in his eyes. "I'm sure you've learned so much from watching Angus."

He'd always intended to kill Brandon. He might not have been expecting him to turn, but he'd always intended to drop the body.

"Now, let's get you settled into your new home." He released her face, focusing on the leather strap, and she lay there quietly and let him. And she noticed that he kept hold of the leather even after he'd nimbly released the buckle, expecting her to jerk away. So she didn't.

It wouldn't get her anything. Until she could get her hands on the breakfast tray, or the gun, she wasn't going to win a physical fight. So she lay there, placidly, while he shot her another surprised look, and trailed a gloved hand down her knee, to her ankle, and started to work on the strap there.

"Don't tell me you're happy to see me," he joked, releasing that strap as well, and still, Riley held herself as still as she could, only daring to draw her leg away from him when he actually let go, and stood to cross to the other side of the bed. The right side of the bed. The side of the bed opposite the gun on the nightstand.

As soon as she had either her right ankle or right wrist free, she could grab it. Grab it and end this, here and now.

Unbidden, the walls of the Phoenix data center rose up, she was struggling with the Organization man for the gun, knowing Jack and Mac were never going to get there in time, that if she gave up, she was going to die—

This was that. If she didn't win this fight here and now, she was going to die. There was nothing Jack or Mac could do—they didn't know where she was. Phoenix didn't know where she was, they would have gotten to her by now, they would've broken down the door. She was truly on her own.

That thought, more than any of the others, rocked her to her core, and threw off any remaining calming tendrils of the drugs. She was on her own. Brandon had already told her that Mac wasn't going to pass the test, wasn't going to get her out alive. Riley took a shaky breath, and Murdoc looked up from her right ankle.

"Relax, Riley," he chastised her, and even after he released the buckle she didn't take her ankle away. He was ready, he was waiting for her, she needed him at the head of the bed, where he couldn't grab her body, couldn't yank her towards him. "He can't hurt you anymore." He flashed her a cheerful smile. "That's my job."

And then he dragged her towards him anyway, without her ever making a move. He yanked her across the California king, far from the nightstand with his gun, far from the breakfast tray. From any weapon she could use. Riley yelped and then instinct kicked in. She bent her right knee, dragging herself even closer to the assassin, and she struck out with her left foot.

And she hit him. She nailed him across the jaw, and pain radiated through her foot as her toes crumpled against his face. She ignored it, shoving off using his face and chest and hurling herself across the bed. Her right wrist was still in restraints, she knew she couldn't reach the other nightstand, couldn't reach the gun, but she went for where the breakfast tray had been, before Brandon had knocked it to the floor. There was still a fork, a fork and an empty champagne flute—

On her right, Murdoc growled something, and her still-bound right wrist was yanked over her head. He pulled her up short, just inches from the fork, and Riley clawed wildly against the sheets, dragging it to her. The assassin didn't let her; he hooked an arm over her chest with bruising force, dragging her by her ribcage towards him, and then it was over.

Riley curled up, trying to get her legs between them, but he didn't let her. He pressed her right hip to his, half-sitting on the bed, and his right arm blocked any ability she had to kick him. She struck out anyway with her left hand, but he caught her fist, pinning her left wrist over her chest to the bed.

Folded up like she was, there was nothing she could do, and Murdoc took a quick breath, twitching his face where she'd struck it.

"Well color me surprised," he murmured, though it sounded anything but amused. "I think you and I are going to have some fun after all." He used his body weight to pin her hips, and then his right hand closed around her throat, just like Brandon's had. Just as strongly.

"Better get used to choking," he snarled, his tone menacing, and Riley fought him until the nothingness blotted out everything.


	3. Review

Jack wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he finally opened his eyes again, but he instantly recognized that he was in a hospital. For a moment, he couldn’t remember why, but then it all came rushing back, and he sat up quickly, wincing and then coughing, reaching up to find an oxygen mask over his face.

“Easy, Dalton.” A calm, steady voice pulled his attention, and he saw Grant Simmons standing in the doorway.

“Grant,” the agent relaxed slightly in his bed, then pulled the mask down when he realized it was muffling his voice, “where am I?”

“LA,” Simmons promised, taking a couple steps into the room and folding his arms with a small sigh. “Hospital, obviously. You slept through the whole trip back. You three really scared a lot of people.”

“Where are Boze and Mac?” he asked. His voice was rough, and his chest was still a bit tight, so he reluctantly brought the oxygen mask back up, taking a few deep breaths.

“They’re fine,” the tac agent assured him. “They’re doing a bit better than you are, actually; they’re both already up and around.”

Jack nodded, mulling that over. Then he pulled down the mask again. “Was it Murdoc?”

Simmons was quiet for a second, his jaw tightening before he dipped his head. “It was.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Jack frowned. “Well?”

The team lead let out a sigh. “We didn’t catch him, Jack,” he admitted reluctantly. “But we will. We have every available resource on it.”

The frown deepened. “And what is it you’re not saying?”

“Don’t, Jack,” Simmons warned wearily. “Just don’t. Please.”

Jack felt his eyebrows climb. “What happened?”

“Matty will come by and tell you all about it once the docs give you the all clear,” Grant told him, dropping his arms and turning to leave. “I’ll let them know you’re awake.”

“Something went wrong, didn’t it?” Jack pressed, and Simmons paused in the doorway, not turning around. “Someone got hurt, and I don’t mean the three of us.”

Simmons neither confirmed nor denied his hunch, and he didn’t leave, either. A little more confident, now, Jack looked around, saw the tac agents stationed outside his room, and when he leaned a little more forward, he saw that there were more agents at the end of the hall.

“You’ve secured the floor,” he observed flatly. “Wouldn’t do that unless you thought Murdoc was gonna make a play for me or Mac, and you wouldn’t think that unless...”

He trailed off, and his heart nearly stopped as his breath froze in his throat. “Where’s Riley?”

“Jack...”

“Grant, don’t—” he broke off when he heard his own voice rising in volume, taking as deep of a breath as he could manage. “Do not try to ‘handle’ me right now. Where the fuck is Riley?”

Simmons let his breath out through his nose, then reached out and shut the door slowly. He took a moment before he turned back to his long-time friend. “We don’t know.”

Jack felt ice settle in his chest. “What the fuck do you mean? How can you not know?”

“One of Riley’s contacts ID’d the code that was used to spy on us,” the team lead explained. “They offered to set up a meet, but we weren’t going to bother because we had Murdoc in our sights. But then...we lost Murdoc in the crowd. And Riley realized that since we knew exactly where the bastard was, this was our best shot at getting ahead of him. Murdoc was in Canada and couldn’t get to her; it was a now-or-never situation. So, Riley set up the meet with Murdoc’s tech guy. She took one agent undercover with her, we had teams on every known exit...” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “But we lost her, Jack. Our best guess is that the tech guy was still working with Murdoc and he took her to help out his boss. But we’ll find her, Jack. Her and that son of a bitch. I can promise you that.”

“Which agent?” Jack demanded, trying to keep his anger in check. “What happened to the agent she took with her?”

“It was Ramirez,” Simmons supplied.

From Grant’s team. No wonder he was so upset.

“As for what happened to him...” here, the tac agent trailed off.

“Is he alive?” Jack prompted.

“Well, yes, but—” Simmons began, only for Jack to cut him off.

“Then where the fuck was he?” Dalton demanded furiously, pausing for a moment as he coughed deep and wet. “Where the fuck was he when that asshole was taking Riley? Where the fuck is he now?”

“Next door, but Jack—”

Jack did not stop to hear what the other agent had to say; he disconnected his heart monitor and IV and threw back the sheets. He was in a hospital-issue snap-on shirt and sweatpants, as well as socks with grips on the bottom, so he didn’t hesitate to stand up.

“Jack, stop,” Simmons ordered, as if it would help. Jack stormed past him and threw open the door, stepping into the hall, and the tac team lead followed him, grabbing his arm. “Dammit, Dalton, listen to me, he—”

“He was supposed to have her back, Simmons!” Jack snapped, ripping his arm away and coughing again, much to his visible frustration. “He was supposed to protect her! So where the fuck was he?”

“Jack, seriously,” Simmons was doing his best both to keep calm and to calm Jack, but Dalton just turned away, reaching for the doorknob of Ricardo’s room.

"Jack!" Simmons reached out and grabbed Jack's shoulder, spinning him so they were facing each other. "Would you just stop and listen to me for half a second?!"

The resounding 'no' that Jack felt was conveyed quite well when the former Delta shoved his friend backwards. Simmons, having not set his feet or braced for this, was sent stumbling back into another tac agent, who caught him somewhat clumsily. While they were distracted, Jack turned and threw open Ricardo's door, his mouth open as he prepared to tear the agent a new one.

The words died instantly on his lips.

Ricardo Ramirez didn't exactly look _pale_ in his hospital bed, but his skin had an ashen quality. There were several machines crammed in around him, only one of which Jack could recognize: a ventilator. His IV tree was very crowded, feeding into both his arm and his hand. His partner and roommate, Mark Kyser, had his wheelchair parked at the agent's bedside, facing the door—and Jack—with his service dog Gizmo lying at his side.

"Jesus," Jack muttered to himself before doubling over to cough again. By that time, Simmons had recovered, and he grabbed Jack by the shoulders, pulling him out into the hall and shooting his conscious wounded teammate a tight-lipped smile as he closed the door.

"Jack, c'mon," Simmons grumbled, guiding him back into his own room as he continued coughing. The team lead shooed him back into bed, handing him the oxygen mask, which Jack quickly replaced over his nose and mouth, breathing deeply.

"Now do you wanna listen?" Simmons asked wearily.

"What happened to him?" Jack asked in reply. Ramirez obviously didn't look great, but there was hardly a scratch on him, and nothing to indicate he'd been in a real fight. Knowing him, Jack was sure that had to mean he never got the chance to fight back. "Was he shot?"

"Poisoned," the tac agent corrected. "By the time I got to him, he was in the middle of a seizure. He's damn lucky we got there when we did; any longer and he'd be dead. As it is, he's in a coma. We're not sure he'll pull through."

Jack liked it a lot better when he could hate Ramirez. Now that he couldn't, fear and dread were replacing his anger.

"And what about Riley?" His voice was a bit quiet and more than a bit muffled by the oxygen mask, but he wasn't ready to put it down yet, still breathing deep.

"We're putting everything we have into finding her," Grant promised. "And in the meantime, we're monitoring Mac, so if Murdoc tries to make contact, tries to start his fucked up game, we'll know."

He knew he should hate himself for hoping that happened sooner rather than later; the longer it took Mac to recover, the longer Murdoc had Riley. At the same time, the less Mac was recovered, the higher the chance—

Jack didn't realize he was actually shaking his head until the oxygen hose almost pulled the mask out of his grasp. Simmons wasn't privy to his thoughts, and clearly wasn't sure how to interpret that, so Jack took the mask away for a moment.

"I want to see everything."

Everything turned out to be most of what Jack would have done, if he'd been there. Grant was right; they'd covered all the exits. In fact, it was only a couple hours after Riley vanished without a trace that they actually _found_ the trace, out on the fire escape that Dixon had cleared.

Hinges, to be precise. Hinges that allowed the fire escape to rotate ninety degrees, making it essentially a fire ladder straight across the alleyway into the parking garage. One of the other analysts had then pulled the parking garage cameras, and around the time they figured Riley had been taken—which was before Matty had made the call to storm the building—a nondescript dark navy four-door had pulled out of the garage, right past the Phoenix tac team there to prevent such things, and driven sedately away.

They'd had IR on the satellite coverage, but no one had been watching the alley for a damn drawbridge to cross it from above. And even as the car pulled smoothly out of the garage, and even as the car pulled smoothly away, there was only one heat signature, there in the front seat.

"Matty figured the trunk was outfitted with insulation, since we know this guy does a lot of tech smuggling."

Insulation that had hidden his little girl from them. Jesus, she was right back in a trunk with a hacker, and he was right back to not having her back, because—

It was easier to be angry, and if he couldn't be angry at Ramirez, Mac was the next best thing.

* * *

Her head was throbbing. That was the only thing Riley noticed upon regaining consciousness, keeping her eyes shut as her skull continued pounding. It took a few seconds for other sensations to register. The first was more pain, this time in her neck and throat. Swallowing hurt, never mind moving her head. She remained still instead, and slowly her brain managed to process more sensations besides pain.

Something beneath her was vaguely soft, cushiony, but it stuck to her bare skin where there was contact, and almost felt like plastic or vinyl. The air was stale and warm, but she could hear a fan and vaguely feel a breeze playing over her skin. Her hair was sticking to her face, and—there was the pain again, this time in her toes.

This time, the pain brought memories with it—uncomfortably vague ones, but memories nevertheless—and she felt adrenaline chill her to the bone. Trying to remain calm, she attempted to brush her hair out of her face only to find that her wrists were bound behind her back, and an attempt at a position change found that her ankles were also bound together.

"Well, good morning!" The voice was cheerful, but it made Riley feel like she might be sick. Slowly, carefully, she pried her eyes open, and her stomach dropped to the floor.

Murdoc.

He was sitting at a desk on one of the walls adjacent to her, a box fan blowing at him, accounting for the faint breeze. There was a laptop open in front of him, though when she blinked the sleep from her eyes, she realized that the laptop looked more like her rig than any commercial product.

 _Maybe it belonged to Brandon_ , she mused, her stomach tightening. Across the dimly-lit room from her, about fifteen feet away, was the door, but she could tell from here that it was locked, and the odds of her getting past Murdoc were unfavorable to say the least. Other than that, the room was empty. No windows. No other exits. Finally, she settled her eyes back on her captor.

“Yeah, you might feel a little foggy,” the man nodded, turning his chair to face her fully. “But that should wear off soon. Unlike our late friend, I won’t keep you drugged. Besides, that would ruin all the fun.”

 _Because being tied to a bed is loads of fun_ , Riley growled silently, confirming that she was indeed on an industrial mattress, the kind you'd find in a summer camp or a cheap dorm. Generally waterproof, though she didn't inspect it closely enough to see if the previous resident had left any bloodstains. With no other options, she simply glared at him.

Murdoc's cheerful smile grew. "Still with the silent treatment?" he asked, sounding amused. "I happen to be a fan, actually. The screaming and crying gets tedious after a while."

She forced herself to clear her sore throat. "...funny, you didn't seem to think so when it was Bozer." Her voice sounded harsh and scratchy, and she managed a swallow.

The psychopath beamed at her. "Well, that was more for the gratification of my audience," he admitted. "I assure you, at the appropriate place and time, you're encouraged to make all the noise you like."

Riley cast another look around the room, more openly, and realized there was a small door on the wall that her bed had been pushed against that she'd previously overlooked. But that was it. No cameras in sight, so whatever Murdoc had planned, this wasn't it.

He was still doing the prep work. Hence the laptop.

"And speaking of young Wilt, how's he holding up?"

Riley let her eyes roll back to a neutral position, which unfortunately put them back on the larger door across the room that she was now quite sure led to the rest of—wherever he had them holed up. _You wanna know how Boze is? Go knock on the Phoenix front door and ask him, asshole._

Murdoc made a quiet tutting sound, probably at her expression. "I imagine that was pretty hard for him," he pondered, voice dripping false regret. "I didn't get a chance to ask him the other day, but it was good to see him out in the field again." Then the assassin chuckled. "Literally."

Out in the field near the burning cabin. Hah hah. Riley resolutely stared at a particular whorl on the wood door, thickly covered with faded, flaking beige paint.

Murdoc let about thirty seconds go by, inviting her to speak, then guested out a sigh. "I feel like I really should apologize again for earlier. It was not my intention to place you in that position."

She blinked at him, momentarily outraged, and glared pointedly at the bed she was currently trussed up on. "Yeah, I can see that," she snarked, and he frowned at her.

"Truly," he said, and she wasn't entirely certain he was faking the sincerity. "While I admit I used Brandon's infatuation with you to manipulate him, he was never meant to have you."

She bared her teeth at his turn of phrase. "And speaking of your plans going off the rails, how's that system treating you?"

Murdoc gave her an oddly friendly nod of his head. "As he may have told you, the next exam is a...little more reliant on technology than the previous. And while I'm hardly the Neanderthal I'm sure he painted me..." Here the psychopath trailed off, glancing ruefully at the laptop. "I did expect him to live long enough to at least kick things off."

Riley gave a humorless snort. "Well, if you want me to take a look, you're gonna have to untie me." She wasn't expecting him to do it, so when he simply bobbed his eyebrows in acquiescence and took his feet, she felt herself shrink back into the mattress.

But that had to be why he let her wake up at all. Why he wasn't drugging her, why he was in the room in the first place, and why he would so openly show her technology that he knew she could and would use to escape—

"You've got some lovely bruising on your toes there," Murdoc observed, once he'd paced the four strides between them and was standing at the foot of the twin-sized bed. He tilted his head a little. "They actually match your toenails." His gaze trailed up her legs, which were still quite bare, up across the blood-crusted t-shirt she was still wearing, to meet her eyes. "If you try to attack me again, I'll remove those toenails," he continued, and the temperature of the room dropped about twenty degrees. "And the attached toes. Do we understand one another?"

Her sore throat ached as the muscles constricted, and Riley could only give him a stilted nod, unwilling to trust her voice. He reached a gloved hand into his back pocket and a knife appeared, the blade weirdly dull-looking in the artificial light of the room, and she couldn't help but flinch when strong fingers took hold of the bridge of her right foot.

Murdoc glanced up at her face again, looking almost disappointed. "Do you really think, if that was my intention, I wouldn't have already done it?" He tapped the flat of the blade against her other ankle, earning another jump, and the disappointment turned into an outright frown.

"And have Mac miss out on the show?" she snarled, too angry and too scared to keep silent. "Given your obsession with him, something tells me I'm not your type."

The assassin chuckled, but the sound was cold, and then he brought the knife to the bindings around her ankles—clearly the leftovers from the straps Brandon had used whenever the hell long ago it had been—and sliced cleanly through. It was almost impossible to stay still, and the hand still on the bridge of her foot tightened in warning.

"Rape is the blunt tool of a dull mind," he told her matter-of-factly. "I suppose some would argue you could get creative with it, but in the end, it's simple domination." When Riley managed to keep herself from flinching further, the assassin let her go, and the mattress crinkled loudly as he took a seat on it, again at her hip. Much closer this time than the king-sized bed, close enough that she could actually smell him, faintly, smell the leather gloves and a day's worth of sweat.

Like Brandon's sweat, his sweat and his blood, dried on the side of her face.

"And, in your case, it's completely unnecessary," he continued deliberately. "Night after night, watching you sleep—sometimes in this very t-shirt." His other hand, the one without a knife, fingered the hem of it, and she couldn't fully suppress a shudder. "I didn't even have to touch you. All I had to do was tap a piece of glass."

Weirdly, Riley's wild thoughts suddenly fixated on that detail, and she realized that he must have taken his gloves off to do that, her phone wouldn't have responded to leather-clad fingertips. She managed to twist her lips into something she hoped looked more sarcastic, and less terrified. "Yeah, well, too bad I banished you from our systems a long time ago."

"Did you?" he inquired lightly. "Roll over."

For a second, she thought about giving him a sarcastic woof, but then she realized that he actually expected her to do it. To roll onto her left shoulder, to make the wrists she was currently lying on top of available to him, so he could cut the straps.

To willingly expose her back to him. To obey him. And in doing so, get her hands free. Get something she wanted.

And giving him what he wanted. Dominance.

She lay perfectly still, glaring up at him. The disappointed look was gone from his face, replaced with a calm, intense calculation. Like a sniper, waiting for his opportunity. Patient, intractable. He was going to wait to see what she decided.

And her options were few. She could try to attack him with her legs—bad angle, he'd stop her the way he did before, and she wouldn't be able to prevent him from choking her, or worse, carrying out his threat to cut off her toes. She could lay there and stare at him, which might encourage him to think that she needed another incentive—again with the knife. She could give him what he wanted, make him think she was cowed. She wasn't sure he'd believe her, but it was better than her other two options.

She wasn't obeying him. Even if that's what he thought it was.

She wasn't obeying him. She was just going along until she found her opportunity.

The decision must have crossed her face, or her eyes; she knew the second that he saw it, the flash of victory and pleasure in his own eyes was undisguised. "I said roll over," he repeated softly.

And she clenched her teeth, utterly refusing to let any liquid gather in her eyes, utterly suppressing any lump in her throat, and she did.

She heard him inhale, even over the crinkling of the mattress as she half-turned, giving him the bare minimum of access to her wrists, and instead of bringing the knife to them, instead of cutting the bonds, his fingertips trailed along her right temple, causing her to jump. All he did was gently smooth away the strands of hair that had been irritating her earlier.

"Relax, Riley." It was almost a coo. "I won't tell them."

A thousand retorts flashed across her mind, but Riley didn't trust her voice, and stuck with silence. Maybe he'd think it was defeat.

 _And I am far from defeated, asshole_. Brandon was sure that Mac wasn't going to be able to get her out of this, but if she had her hands free and a rig?

Then she'd be the one bailing _his_ ass out.

Murdoc stroked her hair a few more times, clearly rubbing it in, but she concentrated only on keeping her breathing steady and her eyes dry, and eventually she got what she wanted. The blade was cool as it slid between her wrists, and then the leather was cut. As soon as it was done, she moved to pull her hands in front of her, and again, he stopped her, his fingers like steel on her bicep.

"Before we get to work, I thought you might appreciate an opportunity to get cleaned up," he offered, almost politely. "You'll find everything you need in the restroom. Don't forget our arrangement."

And then his weight disappeared from the mattress, and his fingers trailed off her arm.

Riley turned deliberately, making sure he was several steps away before she swung her legs over the side of the bed, but Murdoc had tucked his knife back into his pocket and retook his seat by the desk as if nothing had happened. He indicated the smaller door with an absent nod, not really even looking at her, and seemed to focus on the screen in front of him.

She damn near picked up the bed and threw it at him.

The small door did indeed lead to a miserable-looking bathroom. The paint in this room was peeling worse, if that was possible, than the bedroom, and it was hardly large enough for the vanity, fifty year old toilet, and shower tub that had been crammed inside. There were a few nods to her comfort, though; through the half-clear, half-opaque shower curtain that still bore fold marks, she could see colorful bottles of shampoo and body wash. A fluffy pink bath towel and loofah were perched on the top of the old toilet tank, and an impressively white garment was folded neatly on the closed lid. There was a toothbrush still in its plastic packaging and a travel sized toothpaste tube in its cardboard carton on the cracked and yellowed vanity. And along the top of the wall on her left, there was a five inch tall, eight inch wide window that she had zero hope of crawling through. It was too caked with dirt to give her a view, other than to tell her it was daytime-ish, and the opening mechanism, when she tried it, was rusted shut.

Riley glanced back out into the bedroom, where Murdoc was still politely keeping his face averted, and noticed that the door opened into the bedroom—meaning she couldn't try to barricade it shut. There was a lock on the flimsy old handle; it had been reversed, so that it locked from the bedroom side.

Once she was in the bathroom, he could keep her in there as long as he wanted.

More suspicious now, Riley carefully leaned over—one foot still on the threshold of the door—and snagged the white garment laid out for her. It was polyester, about midgrade, and she shook it out and stared at it in confusion.

It was a white nurse's uniform. A Halloween white nurse's uniform, given the almost non-existent length of the skirt and the deep V cut of the bosom, but at least it was higher class than the crap they sold at Party City.

Riley leaned back into the room and glared at Murdoc, silently, until he finally stopped pretending he wasn't paying attention to her, and looked up inquiringly. When he saw she was holding the uniform, he beamed. "I believe you'll find it's your size," he assured her, as if that was her question.

It was not her question, and the fact that he knew her dress size—doubtlessly from hanging out all that time in her closet – disturbed her more than she was willing to admit. She covered it with a sarcastically arched eyebrow. "Sending mixed signals, don't you think?"

The assassin gave her an indulgent smile. "It's less revealing than what you're currently wearing."

Barely. "No."

He blinked. "No?" he echoed, as if truly seeking confirmation.

"No," she repeated flatly. No, she was not going to dress up as a naughty night nurse, and she didn't even want to _think_ about what that implied for Mac's fucked up test.

Murdoc leaned back in the folding chair with a sigh, his lips pursed. "Well," he said, his tone maddeningly reasonable, "either you can put it on, or I can put it on you." He held his hands out in front of him, palm up, and mimed weighing her options, but his eyes were hard and sharp. "I'm sure you can guess my preference. And for the record, dark-eyed and dangerous _is_ my usual type."

Her stomach tightened a little at that information. "Why?" she asked him, finally. "Dude, what the fuck do you _want_."

Murdoc clapped his hands together, suddenly, and the sound made her flinch. "Right now, I want you to do as you're told," he reminded her, and Riley felt her entire face screw up in disgust.

"Really? It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again?"

Murdoc straight up laughed, seemingly truly amused. "Classic reference, though a little before your time. Did Jack teach you that one?" His eyes seemed to glitter in the dim light coming from the weak overhead fixture, and Riley fought hard not to change her expression at the mention of Jack. Mac had been allowed to bring Jack to Bozer's exam, because he'd been injured, and he was again. Maybe that meant Jack would be allowed again as well.

"It captures the spirit, if not the letter of the request. Well, it's not really a request," he allowed, "since one way or another, when you leave this room, you'll be wearing that uniform...or nothing at all."

Any thoughts she'd been entertaining of ripping the thing to shreds went out the window with that statement. Sure, it wasn't much, but it was hella better than facing whatever Murdoc had cooked up for Mac in her birthday suit. "You know I'm _not_ Mac's type, right?" She shook the garment. "What's the point? This isn't going to do anything for him."

The assassin gave her a coy smile. "We'll see. Now...clean up, and make sure you get all the blood out of your hair. We wouldn't want to give Angus the wrong impression."

She was pretty sure that Murdoc absolutely wanted to give Mac the wrong impression, but it occurred to her skittering brain that she could simply look as if she'd been—been treated that way, or she could actually experience it.

She could obey the command, and get what she wanted—not raped—or she could stand her ground and fight him hand to hand, and pray to a god she only partially believed in that she would win.

Again, appearing cowed seemed the better option. She could have one more moment of rebellion and let him hit her, then maybe actually convince him he'd won before she tried to access the rig. Even if all she could do was sabotage it, give Mac a fighting chance—

Then it was the same as giving herself a fighting chance. No matter how Murdoc dressed her up and showed her off, he wouldn't kill her. At least, not until—

Not until Mac was actually on site. Wherever the 'site' was.

She focused on that. The site. Figure out where she was, what this place was. What kind of test Murdoc was going to put Mac through. Then she'd be able to figure out what she should do.

"Go on. I won't peek," Murdoc encouraged, making a little shooing gesture, and Riley glared at him, one more time, and then looked uncertainly at the garment in her hand. Murdoc sighed and his chair creaked as he started to stand, and her hands fisted in the polyester.

"Fine! Fine," she repeated, a little more quietly, when his eyes flashed in displeasure, and she pulled the door shut behind her more to block the sight of the assassin than anything else. Quickly casting around the bathroom netted her the same results as last time. Nothing in the under vanity cabinet, nothing she could use to try to tie the door shut.

He could come in whenever he wanted.

Hell, he was probably going to just lock her in as soon as he heard the water start. Maybe if she had him in close quarters, she could hit him over the head with the toilet tank lid—

Riley swiped the shower curtain aside with a clatter of old iron rings on the curtain rod, then tried the pitted fixtures, and surprisingly clean water came out of the tub spigot. She let it run, discarding the uniform onto the toilet seat cover and then dropping the towel over it, checking to make sure the tank lid really did come off, and it did. It was that or poke him in the eye with the toothbrush. She had nothing useful on her; outside of her now thoroughly trashed t-shirt, she wasn't even wearing a bra. Riley glanced at the cracked mirror over the vanity, checking her ears, but her hoop earrings from the op were nowhere to be seen.

The op.

It seemed a lifetime ago. By now her team was probably back in LA. Tearing the city apart looking for her, just like they had with Bozer. Hell, all of Phoenix probably was.

Well, most of them. Some, she was sure, would have to be taking care of Ramirez. Telling his family that he was never coming back. Making arrangements for him.

The tears she had so far successfully kept at bay threatened again, and Riley bit her bottom lip and looked upward, trying to keep them in.

A strangely shaped collection of peeling paint chips near the top of the wall caught her attention, and she stared at it for several seconds, forcing her tears back where they belonged, before her sight cleared enough for her to actually see what she was staring at.

A dome. The paint chips had flecked off around a dome.

Riley blinked at it a second, then glanced around before she put a foot up on the cracked vanity and stepped up. It _was_ a dome, in fact it was a fish-eye lens, almost an inch in diameter, and Riley ripped off the paint chips—all perforated, to let in the view—and found that the cinderblock had been drilled out, and an old camera nestled into the hole.

A spycam.

"Oh, _fuck_ no you don't," she snarled at it, actually breaking her thumbnail wedging the damn thing out. When that didn't work, she ducked down and recovered the toothbrush, using the end of it like a prybar, and eventually the wires on the back gave, and the thing popped loose into her hand.

It was nothing like the stuff she'd seen in Brandon's showroom. Hell, it looked a little like old Soviet spy cams from the seventies and eighties. It had clearly been hardwired in, but the back of the device was quite cool, and when she dared to tap the exposed end of the wire, sticking about two inches out of the wall, she didn't get a shock.

No power.

Riley looked at the device in her hand, noticing the back was held on by two tiny screws, and she had no screwdriver. She hopped off the vanity, intent on smashing the thing to pieces, but something—maybe Mac's voice in her head—made her hesitate, then grab the bath towel. It did an excellent job of muffling the crack as she slammed it against the vanity, and she peeled back the towel to reveal the pieces. The old plastic was brittle and had shattered, exposing the insides of the little camera.

And there was no camera-inside-the-camera. No tiny button-cam. No wi-fi transmitter. Nothing from the twenty-first century had touched this thing until her.

Riley took a deep, shaking breath, and then searched the bathroom from top to bottom. She didn't find any other domes, she even checked under the toilet seat because Brandon was a sick fuck and if he'd set all this up for Murdoc, it seemed like exactly the thing he'd do.

And in all that time, the water was running, and Murdoc didn't come in.

She sank slowly onto the lip of the tub, not realizing how hard she was breathing, how much her hands were shaking until she brought them to her face and covered her mouth. Murdoc was right. He didn't have to come in, he didn't even have to shout through the door. She was still going to get cleaned up and put on that uniform, and she was going to do it as quickly as she could, because as terrified as she was now—

She forced herself to her feet, to step into the tub, and she drew the curtain immediately. It was opaque on the bottom and clear at about chest level, so that whoever was in the shower could see out but had some semblance of privacy, and her bruised toes curled in the cool water that had gathered in the bottom of the tub, from where the drain was slow.

Riley knelt immediately and tried to unscrew it, but she couldn't get the slick metal to cooperate, and in the end she shimmied out of her panties and covered the drain with them. If there was a camera in there, at least it was blocked.

There was no hot water, but the cold water wasn't frigidly cold and it was unbearably stuffy and hot in the tiny bathroom. Once the old showerhead groaned and rattled to life, she still stood there in her now thoroughly soaked t-shirt, too afraid to take it off, that she'd missed a camera and Murdoc was sitting out there watching her. Her hands were almost shaking too hard to grasp the bottle of shampoo, and she'd just checked it for bugs or cameras when it occurred to her that it was her shampoo.

It was literally hers. From her bathroom in her apartment. Which she hadn't been back in since—

And her body wash. And her face wash. Every bottle in that shower was actually _hers_.

Riley pressed her lips together to keep the sob at least quiet, at least trapped in her chest, and stared up at the old rusty showerhead, the flaking paint, the ceiling.

At the very least, the cold water would hide the evidence.

By the time she shut off the water, she was basically numb. Her broken thumbnail kept snagging in her hair as she quickly toweled off, bringing everything with her into the tub, hiding behind the joke of a shower curtain. Murdoc hadn't bothered to bring her her own underwear, so she quickly rinsed and wrung the only pair she had out in the towel as well and made do. And of course the fucking costume fit her perfectly.

Her bloodied, torn t-shirt she left in the tub.

And Murdoc never came in. He didn't even knock. The bathroom door was too far from the desk in the bedroom for her to reasonably hide the toilet tank cover behind her when she came out, and she couldn't break the mirror without him hearing. She stared at her reflection for a long moment, trying to banish the fear out of her eyes, and then she took as deep a breath as she could, and turned to open the door.

Murdoc was right where she'd left him, and he looked up with a bright smile. "Good news! I think I've figured it out."

Riley made a noncommittal noise, glancing around the room one last time, cataloging everything, and now that she knew what she was looking for, she spotted it.

Another dome, partially obscured under paint, across the room from the bed.

Murdoc followed her gaze. "Oh, you noticed that, did you? I have to say, it's probably for the best this facility was shut down." He gestured to the laptop with a satisfied grin. "Naturally I had Brandon install his own infrastructure. It would hardly do to rely on sixty year old cameras for the money shot."

It was the second turn of phrase Murdoc had taken straight from the porn industry, and she gave him an unamused look. "Well, clearly he wasn't as good as he thought he was. You had no trouble finding that hotel."

The assassin's smile turned a shade colder. "Technology is like any other tool. It doesn't typically have a—a moral code. It does what it's designed to do. It doesn't care who it's pointed at."

Though the analogy was clearly meant to be a gun, there was something else in the room that didn't care what it was pointed at, and Riley gave the hidden camera in the room another uneasy glance. "You put one of his own bugs on him."

Murdoc's smile chilled another five degrees. "Not _on_ him. He'd have found it immediately. Just like your team would have found them immediately."

And they hadn't. He'd put the trackers and bugs on objects each one of them often carried, often took with them as backups—or something they wore frequently but not always, like Bozer's shoes. Murdoc had known that if Brandon bugged out, there were certain things he wouldn't leave behind. The object itself probably didn't matter; she might not have even seen it. And he probably carried enough of his own tech on him at any given time that the sweeps he did were for other people's technology, not his own.

Brandon had built the device Murdoc had used to find and kill him.

Riley dredged up a smirk she didn't really feel. "That's where you're wrong, Murdoc. A good hacker builds a code of ethics into every tool they make."

There was a flicker of true humor, then, across the killer's face. "...perhaps you're right. Or at the very least, some failsafes to ensure the identity of the person operating it."

She almost snorted, and leaned back against the open bathroom door, crossing her arms over her borderline excessive visible cleavage. "Password protection got you down?"

He studied her a long moment. "Sometimes I forget how young you really are," he finally murmured, almost thoughtfully. "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. I've bypassed countless security systems, some rather formidable, and all without a team of experts at my back. You've come to rely on them too much, Riley. That's why you're here, you know."

Riley fought the urge to straighten, to visibly raise her hackles. "I'm here because a sick fuck has targeted one of the best people I've ever known, apparently for the crime of wounding your ridiculous ego. So don't sit there and pretend this is about teaching me, asshole. It's not a class, and we're not your fucking students. It's about torturing Mac; whatever happens to the rest of us is just icing for you."

Murdoc made a production of leaning back, as if she was a stiff wind that blew him down. "Been saving that up for a while?"

Riley heard herself snort out a laugh, but it wasn't the least bit funny. "I'm not going to help you kill Mac, and I'm not going to help you kill me."

The assassin held up his hands in mock surrender. "I agree to your terms." When she narrowed her eyes, he gave her a somber nod. "I'm not asking you to help me kill him. Well, I mean, that's ridiculous, as if I need help to kill him," he added, almost to himself. "If I wanted him dead, I'd have killed him in his grandfather's garage."

"No, you want to toy with him some more," Riley corrected herself sarcastically. "You can't possibly believe I'm going to help you do that."

"You already have," the psychopath murmured, as if confused. "The pulling away, the lost weight, the clear indications that you doubted his ability to protect you, to prevent this...you don't think you've had an impact on our mutual friend? I can see that his behavior has definitely had an impact on you."

No. This was more of him trying to get her to stop counting on them, to stop trusting that they'd get her out, that Mac was—

 _You did stop_ , her brain murmured, quietly, from the back.

"Really?" Her actual voice wasn't as strong as she wanted it, so she unfolded her arms and cracked her knuckles. "You know what? You're right. You got me. How about I help you with that laptop, and you let me go on my merry way."

The killer laughed in delight. "Just because you don't believe Angus can save you doesn't mean that you're willing to abandon him," he chided. "Besides, what I'm asking you to do is the opposite, isn't it? Getting a sneak peek at what's coming? If he dies because a door won't open after I've added the gas, well..." Murdoc gusted out a dramatic sigh. "That will be a tragedy on several levels. A terrible and frankly embarrassing end for Angus, and a completely preventable one, if only you hadn't refused to save him."

She couldn't deny that she wanted to know what was going to happen. That not knowing was terrifying. But she also couldn't believe he'd simply show her. This was clearly and obviously a trick, and one she couldn't yet see the purpose of.

Then again, refusing was likely to end just as badly as cooperating, and she'd bet her life that he had more weapons on him than one knife in his back pocket. Even if it was a trick, it was just to get her hopes up, if she learned something about the site, about any of it—

Riley decided to call his bluff, and after gathering up her courage, she pushed off the open bathroom door and approached him. The assassin rewarded her with a big smile.

"I knew your curiosity would win out. It's one of your most endearing traits, you know."

"Here I thought it was my charming personality," she snapped, and reached out to turn the rig towards herself. He stopped her with one click of his tongue.

"Miss Davis...do you really think I'm going to let you have the keyboard?" Though he was seated and she was standing on the other side of the desk, his proximity was as intimidating as if he'd been towering over her.

"Do you really think I'm going to tell you every keystroke?" she shot back, trying to hide the sudden feeling of panic in her stomach. "We'll be here all month. More than enough time for them to find me." And if she got in a dig to prove that she wasn't going to give up on Phoenix, on teammates, all the better.

"I know exactly how good you are on a keyboard," Murdoc reminded her, and she felt her teeth clench at yet another very intentional turn of phrase. "How about you come sit here next to me and we'll see how it goes."

She would have rolled her eyes if they weren't fixed on him, on every motion as he casually reached around to the other side of the desk, nearest the wall, and produced a previously invisible second folding chair. He did nothing more alarming with it than unfold it and place it beside him, much closer than she wanted to get, and when he had it where he wanted it, he patted the seat invitingly.

Still trying to assert control.

This was it. This was the part where she could rebel, let him 'win,' and maybe, just maybe actually convince him that she was too scared to try anything else. But the look on his face, the barely veiled smile around his eyes—

He was enjoying this. He wanted her to refuse.

And if she had to pull a WWF move and take him out with a folding chair, well, that seemed pretty fucking fitting.

So she did come around the desk, reluctantly, and got her first good look at the computer screen.

It was definitely set up like an operational dashboard. She saw a series of tabs, each one a physical location, and each one contained several camera views as well as representations of toggle knobs and sliders, like on a mixing board in a recording studio. Motion caught her eye, and Riley watched someone wearing a hospital gown shuffle across the intersection of a couple long, dingy hallways. Though it was in color, it had an odd yellowish tinge to the picture, either a gel on the camera lens itself, or a software filter.

A filter that made it look kinda like—

Riley stared at it a moment, and then Murdoc tapped a few keys—much more assuredly than Jack would have, lending credit to his boast that he at least had some level of competency in the technical space—and brought up another screen, this one more command line than graphical.

She had no hope of reading it without getting closer. Without sitting next to him.

"I've figured out the basics, more or less," Murdoc began, both enjoying and trying to pretend he wasn't aware of her reluctance, "but there's some automation that's been set up and it would be a shame if I accidentally interfered with it."

Code that would tell her the trigger and the resulting actions, as well as the timing of those actions. Potentially tell her about traps built in, something she could use to warn Mac or even trigger herself, knowing exactly what error code she'd have to produce to stop the automation in its tracks.

Riley forced her legs to bend, and she sat, stiltedly, on the edge of the cold, uncomfortable chair. She absorbed the first half of the code without really reading it, identifying only the important bits—systems being called, that one was clearly Linux-based, the next was industrial, like she'd expect to see in a water treatment plant or automated boiler room—and she leaned in a little closer, speed-reading the next few lines. Maybe a commercial laundromat?

Murdoc sat back, giving her space, and Riley shot him a quick glare out of the corner of her eye. "What exactly are you asking me to do with this?"

"Just look at it," he murmured, settling casually further into his chair as if it no longer interested him.

The screen blinked, as if someone had just changed the aspect ratio, and then the entire page of code drifted down the screen in a very Matrix-esque effect. Riley leaned back abruptly, almost expecting the laptop to explode, but instead the screen went dark, and a slow clap came from the built-in speakers.

"Welcome, Artemis. I see you've found my little easter egg."

The voice was unmistakably the late R34mer22. Murdoc's hacker. She glanced at the killer in alarm, and he gave her a small, satisfied smile.

"I tried to unlock it while you were sleeping, but the facial recognition software was too smart for that."

A failsafe. To ensure the application knew who was running it.

The password Murdoc needed wasn't a password at all. It was her. Her face, proof that she was really there and Brandon was really going to get whatever payment he'd been promised.

Her. In a goddamn nurse's uniform.

Brandon didn't know that Murdoc was going to steal his thunder—or his life—and continued speaking over his ex employer. "You think you've just found a back door into the system and you'll be able to engineer a quick save, or maybe shut me down. Unfortunately," and here the hacker scoffed, obviously enjoying himself, "I put this little opportunity here just for you. This rig has one purpose and one only—to kick us off. First move was yours, Artemis. Enjoy the show."

"Originally," Murdoc continued, as Riley just stared at Brandon's smug face, "you were going to wake up in here alone, find a way to escape, and break into an office to find this laptop. You could try to assist Angus from there, but you wouldn't be in the middle of the action. I even let Brandon choose your stand-in."

She blinked, and the laptop reset its aspect ratio, back to the lines of code she'd seen before. Code she now knew wasn't real. It couldn't be. There was no way they'd give her the keys to Mac's test.

"He must have realized from the first two examinations that I had lied to him, and would never permit you not to be in actual danger. There's no point to these simulations if there aren't real consequences, after all."

Riley stared at the screen, no longer even trying to see it. "...so he set this up to screw you. If you didn't hold up your end of the deal, and keep me safe—"

"Then no one would get to play with the toys at all," Murdoc finished, then gusted out a sigh. "Thank you for your help, Riley. I couldn't have done it without you."

She knew he was moving before he actually moved, she knew now that her part was done and Murdoc needed her out of the way, needed to move her to where he wanted her, and Riley grabbed the edge of the desk and bolted away from him. The chair went flying out from under her, creating an obstacle, and she managed to get halfway around the desk before Murdoc's fingers caught her hair. It was still loose and damp from the shower, a perfect handle, and he yanked down hard, slamming the side of her head into the desk surface.

Her feet flew out from under her, and Riley gasped, trying to blink the spots out of her vision. She grabbed the desk, trying to get leverage, but by then he'd looped it and shoved her body into the unyielding wood, hard. Her right hand went up to her hair, trying to pry his off, and her left scrabbled on the surface of the desk, knocking objects aside, searching for something, a pen, _anything_ she could use as a weapon— 

"Careful," he breathed into her ear as she dug her nails into his leather glove. "Don't forget about those little piggies, or I'll send all five to market." He tightened his grip on her hair and scalp as he said it, and she gasped again, unable to stop a whimper at the stinging pain. Her searching left fingers were flattened by a fist coming down on top of them, making her cry out, and then he grabbed her left wrist and yanked it behind her, shoving her down into the desk for a third time.

"Shhhh," he soothed, even as she tried unsuccessfully to wrench herself out of his grip. "Just relax." The hand in her hair picked up and slammed her head against the desk again, stunning her, and as he dragged her off the desk and away, she saw the laptop had tumbled to the ground, and there on its power supply was a small black knob, almost like one of Brandon's little cameras.

* * *

Matty's head turned when she heard the War Room door open, and she was not at all surprised to see Mac and Bozer walk in, turning her attention back to the big screen.

"You both cleared?" she asked evenly.

"To leave the hospital? Yes," Bozer confirmed.

"Field work is a bit more up in the air," Mac admitted begrudgingly. Matty just nodded; of course, she knew the answer already, but hearing that they didn’t even try to lie to her was a little more encouraging.

“Any news?” the blond agent asked hopefully, searching the big screen for some kind of clue.

“Nothing yet,” Matty grumbled, frowning. “As much as I would like to believe otherwise, though, I think we might have to accept that Murdoc has made it back to the States by now.”

“Which means I’m gonna be up, soon,” Mac concluded sullenly, leaning down and picking up a paperclip from the bowl on the table, his fingers getting to work automatically.

"Hey, we don't know that," Bozer scolded his friend. "There's no way he could have gone through any official checkpoints without us knowing about it, so he's at least as delayed as we were. We could still find her before this kicks off."

As if in agreement with Bozer’s words, the tablet in Matty’s hands trilled urgently, pulling all three pairs of eyes to its screen. The director looked down, quickly reading and processing the information, feeling her eyebrows creep upwards in surprise.

“What?” Mac prompted, just the tiniest inflection of hope in his voice.

“Don’t get excited,” Matty warned. “We didn’t find where Murdoc is keeping her. But we did find where she went after the meeting with R34mer22.”

Before either could ask questions, the director beamed the images in the file she’d received up to the big screen. They were crime scene photos, most centered around the bed in the honeymoon suite of a five-star hotel about twenty miles from the electronics store.

“LAPD were called by staff at the Grand Plaza when their cleaning crew found this in the bedroom of the honeymoon suite,” Matty explained. The photos showed half a set of wrist and ankle restraints amongst the sheets, a tray of breakfast half tossed on the ground and the bed, the sheets themselves askew and barely hanging onto the bed, and most alarmingly, blood. There were bloodstains on the sheets and the headboard, and when Mac took a step closer to the screen, Matty knew he’d spotted the skull fragments among them.

“No body?” he asked, his voice tight and tense.

“No,” Webber denied. “Just the blood.”

“How did it get on our radar?” Bozer questioned, his arms folded tightly over his chest as he worked hard to keep the distress from his expression. “Is...is the blood—?”

“Not hers,” Matty promised, watching both him and Mac relax just a fraction. “But her fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene.”

“Which means we can probably guess whose blood that is,” Bozer concluded grimly.

“But why?” Mac’s face was set in a frown. “Based on the restraints and lack thereof, I’m thinking Murdoc used them to keep her restrained, but why take her there in the first place? Why kill his partner? Why leave any evidence behind? If he was _going_ to leave evidence behind, why take the body? This doesn’t make sense.”

"Does he ever?" Bozer scoffed. "Trying to understand that bastard's logic might be a losing battle, man."

"Whatever his reasons, it's pretty clear he's back in the States," Matty glared at the screen, as if trying to force it to reveal some hidden secret. "It's a long shot, but maybe we can get something useful from the hotel cameras..." she was already tapping away at the tablet screen, assigning the task to one of the other analysts, as she spoke. "In the meantime, does either of you have a status on Dalton?"

She could find that out herself, and very easily, of course, but if they had the information, it would save time.

Mac tensed up just slightly at the mention of his partner, and the director frowned internally. After a beat or two of silence, Bozer must have realized that his best friend wasn't going to answer, so he took over, clearing his throat.

“He’s awake, but they’re probably going to keep him for another day at least,” he reported.

“Which might be a problem if you’re allowed a partner again,” Matty murmured at least half to herself, looking off thoughtfully. Mac offered something between a scoff and a nervous, humorless laugh.

“Don’t know that Jack would be my first choice at the moment,” he admitted, looking both wounded and angry. Matty fixed him with an even look.

“As much of a pain as he is, Dalton is your partner and one of our best agents,” she reminded him, her voice a little cold. “Are you telling me that you don’t think you two can work together anymore?”

“Matty, that’s not what I’m saying.” The blond man sounded tired and not at all convincing when he spoke, and the director raised an eyebrow.

“Because if you want a new partner, I can make that happen,” she promised. “Do you want a new partner?”

She expected him to shut her down immediately, and refused to show her surprise and borderline horror when Mac didn’t instantly refuse. There was a beat or two of silence—truly contemplative silence—before he let out a weary, somewhat defeated sigh.

“No,” he refused at last.

“Alright, that’s it,” Bozer huffed, “what the fuck is going on with you two? What the hell happened that you two can’t just get over?”

“Boze, not this again,” Mac attempted to brush his best friend off, but this time, Bozer was not having it.

“No, you know what? Not this time,” he snapped, causing Mac to look at him in surprise. “Whether you like it or not, whether you and Jack pull your heads out of your asses and work together is _our_ business, too! It affects us! It affects _Riley_! I’m done tiptoeing—what the fuck happened between you two?”

“Honestly, Boze, I think that’s a question you need to ask Jack,” Mac responded with a tightening jaw. “He’s the one with the problem.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Bozer frowned. “C’mon, Mac; this is ridiculous. Whatever it is, it can’t be worth tearing the team apart!”

“You don’t know what he said!” Mac snapped, wincing slightly at the strain on his voice. “Or what he did! And frankly, Boze, it’s none of your damn business! If Jack wants to apologize, great; until then, back off!”

Bozer bristled with frustration and opened his mouth to speak again, but they were interrupted by the sound of Mac’s phone ringing. The blond agent stiffened visibly, and Bozer’s face fell in dismay as his friend pulled the device from his pocket. Matty glimpsed the screen as he did so, and as soon as she saw the word "restricted" on the screen, she was sending out a mass message to the techs, telling them to do whatever they had to do to track that call. Mac took a quiet breath, then answered and cleared his throat as he put it on speaker.

"Hello?"

"Oh, good," Murdoc didn't waste time with pleasantries. "You're awake. I worried I might have called too early. How are you feeling, Angus?"

He actually sounded like he cared, if you didn't catch the malice under the words. All three of them, of course, caught it instantly.

"Can we please skip the buildup?" Mac rolled his eyes. "What is it you want me to do?"

"Now, MacGyver, I thought we had a discussion about not being such a killjoy." Murdoc chuckled through the words, but his tone was acidic, and Mac's jaw tightened. "You wanna try that again?"

"Not particularly," Mac replied, causing both Matty and Bozer to look at him in slight alarm.

"Wow, I wasn't aware that Miss Davis meant so little to you."

"I have no proof she's even alive," Mac growled, taking a second to fight back a cough. "You've killed at least one person since Lara already, and it's not like you _wouldn't_ make me complete a whole 'exam' just to 'reward' me with her dead body."

To their surprise, Murdoc laughed.

“I suppose you’re not wrong,” he allowed. There was a slight pause, and then Mac’s phone buzzed. It was a new email with a link, and after Matty had the techs confirm that it was harmless, he tapped the link.

Just as with Matty’s exam, the link produced camera feeds. Three of them, to be exact. When Mac beamed them up to the big screen, they saw that it was three different angles of the same room. Room was a strong word, though; it was a prison cell. One of the angles could see bars taking up a whole wall. It was dimly lit, small, dirty, and contained only a thin—though oddly clean—mattress on the floor in the corner and a toilet.

Well, that and Riley.

The analyst was sitting on the mattress, her back pressed into the corner and knees pulled tight to her chest. Her head was down, and she wasn’t moving an inch. She didn't appear injured, though—at least there was no blood visible on her bare arms and legs, or the white...whatever she was wearing.

“Not sure what exactly this proves,” Mac frowned. “She’s not moving. Even if she was, how do I know if this is live?”

“Oh, MacGyver, don’t you trust me?” They could practically hear the smirk in the killer’s voice. “I’m hurt.”

“Sure you are,” Mac scoffed. Murdoc continued like he hadn’t said anything.

“But, I do see your point. She is holding very still. I’ll see if I can’t get her to move.”

Matty’s stomach clenched, almost not wanting to know how he’d do that, but all three of them kept their eyes fixed on the screen. There was no sound to accompany the video, but they assumed there had to be some kind of noise made, because Riley jumped, her head jolting upright and eyes fixed on the bars across from her.

“Well, it was movement, I guess,” Murdoc mumbled. “Good enough for you? I can probably get a little more out of her, but you might find my methods on that cruel.”

“No,” the blond agent said quickly. “It’s fine.”

“Good,” Riley’s captor approved. “So, I take it you found the hotel room, then? You wouldn’t _believe_ what I walked into, MacGyver; I think you might actually thank me for breaking that up. Riley certainly did—or, she came around, at least.”

“Goddammit, Murdoc, would you just stop bullshitting and get to the point?” Mac demanded, moments before his attempts to suppress his coughs finally failed. He doubled over, coughing deep and wet coughs into his left elbow for several seconds before he got control again, gasping slightly to catch his breath and grimacing.

On the phone, Murdoc clicked his tongue. “You don’t sound so good, Angus,” he commented. “I’m thinking maybe you should rest up for a bit longer. You may have been an absolute nightmare student as of late, but I’m still not _trying_ to fail you, after all.”

“Wait—”

“Go ahead and get another breathing treatment and we’ll pick this up in the morning. Goodbye, now.”

He hung up before Mac could stop him, and as the camera feeds winked out with him, the blond agent let out a weary breath.

"I take it they couldn't track him down?" he asked quietly, not looking at them. Matty pressed her lips together, looking down at the tablet in her hands and praying it would say otherwise.

Her prayers went unanswered as her analysts confirmed they hadn't managed to pin the call down.

"No," she reported evenly. Then her voice softened a bit. "Sorry, Mac."

And she _was_ sorry. This never should have happened. She should have stuck to her guns and refused to let Riley leave Phoenix. She should have known better. If she had, Ramirez wouldn't be in a coma, Riley wouldn't have been taken, and Mac wouldn't have to go through with another one of Murdoc's sick games. She'd already let Bozer down, and now it was happening all over again.

But blaming herself did nothing to help her team, so Matty pressed on.

"Listen, blondie, I don't know what's going on between you and Dalton—"

"Matty, I'm really not in the mood for a lecture right—"

"—and I don't care," she continued, silencing her agent as he stared at her in shock. "You two can get all the couple's counseling you need when Riley is safe. Until then, I just need to know one thing, and I need you to tell me the truth."

MacGyver blinked at her, then nodded somewhat warily.

"If Murdoc allows you to bring a partner again, can I trust you and Dalton to work together, or should I have someone else on standby?"

It should have been such an easy question, but Mac paused, seriously considering his answer, and while Matty worked hard to hide her dismay at this, Bozer's was written all over his face. Finally, Mac let out a quiet breath.

"I think that regardless of how we feel about each other, no one would go to greater lengths to get Riley home than Jack," he concluded, finally meeting her eyes. Matty studied him for a moment.

"You trust him to listen to you?" she pressed.

"For her? Absolutely."

"And you trust him to save you, too, if it comes to it?"

Another easy answer that Mac dwelled on, making Matty's stomach churn. It took at least fifteen seconds for Mac to reply.

"I trust him to do whatever it takes to get her out safely."

Matty frowned. It didn’t really answer the question. “Mac, I don’t think I have to tell you that if you and Jack don’t trust each other completely, this isn’t going to go well. If you half expect him to throw you to the wolves, you won’t be focused on whatever Murdoc puts in front of you. So I’m going to ask again: Can you trust your partner?”

“I trust him enough to get the job done,” Mac replied dismissively. “Now, I think I’ll see about that breathing treatment Murdoc mentioned. Unless you need me for something else...?”

It was clearly, obviously an excuse, but Matty could hardly tell him to refuse necessary medical treatment and he knew it, so after a few seconds, she nodded stiffly.

“Fine,” she agreed. “Bozer, go with him; you need another treatment, too.”

The hidden assignment was obvious enough that Mac’s jaw set, and Bozer nodded dutifully before they both left the War Room.

Leaving Matty alone with the screens and the terrifying idea that she was already too late.

* * *

Director Webber didn't lift her head when the War Room door opened; she knew it was Mac who was joining her. It was the afternoon following their phone call with Murdoc, and her agents—all three of the ones still accounted for, since Dalton had been released from the hospital—were finishing up another round of breathing treatments with the Phoenix medical staff before joining her. Matty was getting their numbers in real time, so she knew that Mac had completed his a bit ahead of his teammates, and with the tension between him and Jack, she also figured he wouldn't stick around to wait.

Looking at the medical report for the blond agent, his doctors were much more optimistic now than they had been yesterday. There was even a note in the report that Mac had actually slept through a portion of each treatment, much to the delight of Dr. Talbot.

Still, the doctors had made a point to mention that he was not at a hundred percent yet. Most of that toxic smoke he'd inhaled had been purged from his system, but he was not, in reality, good to go.

When the director finally flicked her eyes up to her agent, she found herself agreeing with their assessment.

MacGyver stood before her a bit pale, with dark rings under his tired eyes and an uncharacteristically somber expression. He wasn't himself, and he hadn't been for a long time. No one in their right mind would send him out to face whatever Murdoc had come up with for this new game.

But they had no choice. Someone had to go, and Murdoc would accept no substitutes. Mac had to be ready.

If he wasn't, she'd lose them both.

“Sleep well, blondie?” she asked finally to break the silence that had stretched between them.

“...I slept,” Mac offered at last. It wasn’t nearly as reassuring as his tone indicated he’d meant it to be. Matty shot him a look that told him exactly how she felt about that, and put her tablet down. Her agent tensed, waiting—she was sure—for a lecture, but there was no point in that. Not this late in the game.

“How’re you feeling?” she asked. “Did they give you something for the pain?”

“Tylenol,” Mac shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I take it there’s been no luck finding her.”

“No,” Matty confirmed regretfully. “Mac—”

She was interrupted by Dalton and Bozer coming into the room, neither of them looking much better than Mac.

“Hope we didn’t miss anything,” Jack was trying not to sound harsh, but he didn’t quite succeed, and his partner’s jaw tightened.

“No,” the blond agent assured him stiffly. “But I don’t think it’ll be much longer; he called right around this time yesterday.”

As if to emphasize his point, his phone went off, alerting him to a new email. Matty watched the blond agent hesitate before pulling out his phone, every muscle in his body tensing beneath his skin. Once the director made sure the email itself was harmless, he opened it. It was short again this time, no attachments, no introductions.

_ Exam 3 is not a partner test. You are to pass or fail on your own. The following are prohibited in the exam hall: _

  * _A partner_


  * Any means of communicating with anyone outside of the exam


  * Any means of outside help locating you or the exam


  * Any weapons or tools (excluding your Swiss army knife)


  * Anything else that may be reasonably deemed "cheating"



_ The exam itself will be explained upon your arrival at the below location. If any tails or other surveillance measures are seen, or if any of the above rules are broken, it will result in an automatic failing grade and a particularly unfortunate end for Miss Davis. See you soon, MacGyver. _

Matty frowned at the message and the coordinates provided beneath it, glancing over at her agent and seeing that he looked as though the floor had dropped out from under him.

"He didn't give us a time frame," she stated while her analysts began to run down the coordinates and tried to trace the email. "We can take a minute, come up with a strategy. You don't have to rush into this."

"Every minute we wait is another minute he's alone with Riley," Jack protested, his voice harsh enough to make Mac shift uncomfortably. "We try to cheat this and he will kill her. There's nothing to plan; we don't know what he has in mind! Waiting is pointless." He turned to face his partner, arms folded over his chest. "Right, Mac?"

It was possibly the first time he'd addressed the blond agent directly in quite a while, but it wasn't encouraging. It was clear that Jack was not actually soliciting his partner's opinion; the words were prickly and bordered on a threat. Mac looked at him for a few seconds, and Matty thought she might have seen a spark of fear in his eyes. Finally, he nodded.

"Jack's right," he stated, a tiny waver in his voice prompting him to clear his throat before he turned to look at her. "He's clearly already pissed off; it's probably not in anyone's best interest to keep him waiting. I'll be fine, Matty." He turned to leave, not meeting their eyes. "I'll see you when I get back."

He left the War Room, and Matty had to let him, but when he was gone, she glared at Jack, who huffed.

"What?"

"You just fed him to the wolves and guilted him into not even taking a minute to collect himself," she growled. "You put him in a terrible mindset right before he has to go up against Murdoc. You couldn't even pretend to be supportive for  _ Riley's  _ sake?"

"Coddling him is a waste of time and energy," Jack replied, staring her down.

"So you two are gonna let Murdoc tear you both apart like he planned because you can't even put your ego aside for thirty seconds?" Matty honestly couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Christ, Dalton, what the fuck  _ happened _ ?"

"Frankly, Matty, that's none of your damn business," the former Delta glared.

"It's severely affecting this team, so it is my business!"

"That's it; I'm not dealing with this," Dalton turned his back on her, starting to head for the hallway, but he barely made it two steps. Bozer, who had been watching this whole exchange with a rage-filled expression, grabbed his arm before he could make it to the door, spun him, and punched him hard across the face, making Jack stumble to the floor. It happened so fast that Matty almost didn't process what was happening.

"Bozer!" she shouted the harsh warning when the furious agent took a step forward, but Bozer didn't advance any farther. The younger man stared daggers at Jack for a few seconds as he gaped up at him in genuine surprise. When Wilt spoke, his voice was like ice.

"If my best friend gets killed because you got in his head, I will feed you to Murdoc myself."

With this, he turned and rushed out of the War Room, likely trying to catch Mac before he left. Matty stared at Jack as he got to his feet, rubbing his jaw.

“Whatever happened between you and Mac,” the director said slowly, pulling Jack’s eyes, “whatever it was, I know you haven’t just stopped caring about that kid. You couldn’t have; you can’t simply turn it off. You just sent Mac up against Murdoc in a terrible headspace without even so much as a ‘good luck’ on his way out. If something goes wrong in there, if Murdoc wins, if Mac is too distracted to get both himself and Riley out alive, do you really want what you said to him just now to be the last words he ever hears you say?”

Jack had no answer for that, just glaring at her. Matty uttered a weary sigh and waved her hand.

“Go,” she ordered. “Get some ice on that. I’ll let you know when someone makes contact.”

Again, her words were met with a furious glare, but Dalton didn’t say a word, instead walking out of the room.

Leaving Matty alone, praying that she wouldn’t have to start planning a couple funerals before the day was up.

* * *

Mac was almost to his car when he heard his name being called behind him. He turned, finding Bozer slowing to a stop in front of him, a little winded. Mac blinked at him.

“Did you run all the way from the War Room?”

Bozer nodded, taking a moment to catch his breath. The blond agent was surprised at himself when he laughed quietly. Of course he did.

“Didn’t get a chance to say anything before you walked out,” Bozer explained once he’d slowed his breathing. “You seemed off. Like, more than usual.”

Mac let out a sigh through his nose. “Yeah. Maybe. But Boze, really, I am fine. I can handle this, whatever he throws at me.”

He meant it to be reassuring, but even he didn’t believe the words, and that came through in his voice. Bozer frowned at him.

“You realize that you won the last round, right?” he stated, causing Mac to shift his feet uncomfortably. “Actually you’ve won every round so far.”

“‘Won’ is a strong word,” Mac chuckled.

“But the right one,” Bozer insisted. Then he sighed. “Look, man, I won’t keep you; I just wanted to tell you that even though we won’t be there, we’ve got your back. And even if Jack’s being a dick, he  _ does _ care that you make it out of this. We all do. Whatever this is, you can beat him, just like you’ve done every other time before this.”

Despite himself, Mac felt his shoulders relax a bit. There were a thousand reasons he could find to contradict the other agent’s statement, but somehow, coming from him, they managed to cut through the noise. He offered his friend a slight smile. “Thanks, Boze.”

“Any time, man,” his best friend grinned right back at him, then pulled him into a hug. “I’ll see you later.”

It wasn’t just a sendoff. It was a promise. And before Mac even really thought about it, he promised the same—for both himself and Riley. Then they separated, said their goodbyes, and then Mac was off, pulling up the coordinates on his GPS. They led him, to his surprise, to a busy, upscale restaurant about an hour and a half from Phoenix. Mac blinked, but found a place to park in the lot behind the building next door. There were so many people around, so many civilians inside—surely, Murdoc couldn’t be hiding Riley there, could he? And there would be so many cameras; what the hell was that psycho up to?

He was about to get out of his car when his phone buzzed in his hand. He had a text from a restricted number.

_ Leave your phone in your car. Your Uber is arriving. _

Mac was confused for a second, but when an SUV pulled up behind his Jeep, he realized Riley’s captor was being fairly literal. The blond agent sighed, then dropped his phone in the glove compartment and climbed out. The man driving the SUV was early-to-mid-thirties, dark hair, five o’clock shadow. He was gripping the steering wheel tightly, his body rigid as Mac walked around and got in the passenger seat—noting the lack of stickers identifying the car as an Uber or Lyft. Without saying a word or even looking at him for more than a few seconds, his driver grabbed a phone from the cup holder and handed it to him. Mac blinked, but accepted the device, and as they pulled out towards the road again, it vibrated, and the screen warned him of a call from a restricted number. Mac let out his breath and answered before he could psych himself out.

“Good to know you made it, Angus,” Murdoc’s voice made the agent’s jaw tighten. The assassin sounded almost cheerful. “You have a little time before the festivities really kick off, so I’d settle in.”

“Y’know, you can’t turn just any old car into an Uber,” Mac commented, looking over at his driver and seeing his hands wringing the wheel, a look of anguish on his face. “What did you do to this guy?”

“Nothing yet, of course,” Murdoc sighed. Mac frowned, watching his driver’s eyes flick up to the visor, and when the agent looked, he saw the snapshot of a smiling little boy and girl, maybe four years old. Mac looked over his shoulder into the back seat and saw two car seats strapped in.

“Where are they?” the blond man demanded slowly.

“Relax, Angus,” Murdoc chuckled. “They’re fine. They’re eating ice cream, waiting for their dad to come pick them up. I just wanted to call and give you one last chance: If I find anything on you when you get here—”

“I don’t have anything; I’m not an idiot,” Mac grumbled. There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Very well, then,” he allowed finally. “We shall see. I’ll see you soon MacGyver.”

He hung up before Mac could stop him, and the blond agent let out his breath, putting the phone down.

"I'm sorry you got dragged into this," Mac told his driver sincerely, quietly, certain that Murdoc was listening. "He won't hurt them. I won't let him."

The man behind the wheel just looked at him, terror in his dark eyes. The phone buzzed in the cup holder, and he picked it up and looked at the text on the screen.

_ Don't make promises you can't keep. _

Mac's jaw tightened in frustration, but he didn't say anything, he didn't text back, and beside him, his driver didn't reply.

It took around another thirty minutes for them to pull into a parking lot in a much less well-monitored part of the city. The surrounding buildings all seemed more or less abandoned. A limo—suitable for about five or six passengers, hardly something that would stand out in Los Angeles—was parked and waiting in a patch of shade. They pulled into a spot, and as both Mac and his driver got out, the back door of the limo opened, and the two kids from the picture came running out with cries of, "Daddy!"

Their father dropped to one knee, catching both of them in a hug, but neither child seemed in any way distressed or upset. The phone Mac had been given vibrated again, alerting him to one more text.

_ Get in. _

Mac frowned, then turned to look back at the man who'd driven him there.

"You should get them out of here," he said gently. The man nodded at him, then quickly started placing both children in their car seats. Mac waited near the back door of the limo until he drove away, and then, with one last deep breath, he climbed inside.

Inside the limo was Murdoc.

The blond agent suppressed a startled jump; he'd been expecting for the psychopath to be behind the wheel, if he was there at all. Murdoc grinned at him, though his eyes were like ice.

"Welcome, MacGyver," he greeted him.

"What was the point with those kids?" Mac demanded, trying to keep his voice steady. Murdoc shrugged.

"You all get so  _ testy _ when children get involved. It's actually quite amusing, and frankly, you've been getting on my last nerve lately; seemed only fair to return the favor."

The words were casual, but there was a chilling annoyance in the tone that kept Mac from responding. With a sigh, the assassin picked up what looked like a glass of whiskey or scotch and handed it to him.

"Drink up."

Mac hesitated, staring at it for a beat or two before flicking his eyes back up to Murdoc.

"What is it?"

Murdoc frowned slightly. "Does it matter?"

"I did just get out of the hospital," Mac reminded him. "I'd rather not die from the wrong drug interaction."

"As if I didn't already account for that," the assassin growled. "How stupid do you think I am? I simply don't want to spoil the surprise, Angus, so you can either drink this, or forfeit."

A sedative. Murdoc wanted him to drug himself. The Phoenix agent swallowed hard, but reached out and took the glass from his outstretched hand.

"Why are you even giving me the option?" Mac asked quietly, bringing the glass closer to his nose and sniffing it. He was surprised when he realized that it wasn't scotch or whiskey, but apple juice.

"I want to know if you've learned anything," Murdoc shrugged as a small smile spread across his face and he settled back into his seat. "Now, go on. Drink up."

Mac knew he'd stalled as much as he could, so he took a quick breath and brought the glass up to his lips, tipping it back and spilling the juice into his mouth. He swallowed the liquid before he had time to think about it, and when it was all gone, he lowered his head to see Murdoc outright grinning. The blond man suppressed a shudder.

“You  _ are _ learning,” the psychopath remarked somewhat joyously. Mac kept his expression as neutral as he could. Already, Mac felt a chill settle into his chest, his whole body starting to feel heavy.

“Well, I’m glad,” Murdoc continued as the blond agent fought in vain to keep his eyes open. “Maybe you can be taught after all, MacGyver.”

Mac didn’t have time to reply. Whatever Murdoc had given him was hitting him fast; before he knew it, his sluggish thoughts finally pulled him into unconsciousness.


	4. Exam 3, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, basically, Haven126 and I realized that this exam was going to be stupid long, so we decided to chop it into parts. Here's the first one.
> 
> Also, I would like to take this time to credit Haven126 with writing most of this exam; I was never allowed to play video games growing up and have only really seen others play a few, so I was really out of my element.

Lifting his eyelids felt like too demanding a task. Mac clung desperately to his slumber, willing himself back to sleep—until he remembered.

Murdoc.

Riley.

The blond agent switched gears, forcing himself back to consciousness as fast as he could.

He actually questioned whether he’d truly opened his eyes; it was absolutely pitch black, wherever he was. Remaining still, lying on his back, he blinked a few times, but there was no blindfold on him, no bag over his head. Strangely, though, it felt like he was wearing glasses. A couple seconds later, it registered that there was something strapped to his left forearm.

Finally, the agent pushed himself up into a sitting position. The second he started moving, a projector started up, casting an image onto the wall on his left. The sudden rush of light had him shutting his eyes again. He pried them open slowly, letting them adjust, then started looking around, trying to get his bearings.

The first thing he did was look down at himself. He was no longer wearing the button-up and jeans he’d been wearing when he’d left Phoenix. He was now wearing black pants, black boots, and a gray, collared polo shirt with a logo for something called Dempsey Engineering Services embroidered on the left side of his chest. He tried not to dwell on this fact too much, though he did feel a slight chill run down his spine before he squashed the feeling.

Attached to his left forearm, just shy of his watch, was an arm band with a cellphone attached long ways on the inside of his arm. The screen of the device was dark, and when he tapped at it, it didn’t respond. He couldn’t seem to remove it, either, so eventually, he just let it be. Reaching up, he realized that he was indeed wearing glasses. When he took them off, he saw that they were simple, black frames, like the kind one might find in a drug store, but they had no sort of magnification. He was about to discard them when the phone on his arm vibrated and three words appeared on the black screen.

_ Keep them on. _

Mac frowned, but did as he was told and slipped the glasses back onto his face, watching the words disappear and the screen again go black. Then, he decided to take in his surroundings.

All of the walls were painted black, as was the floor, which seemed to be made out of plywood. The walls to his left and right were about twelve feet long, and the other two walls were about seven feet. On the wall in front of him, there was a backpack hanging from a hook, but nothing else. Finally, he shifted his attention to what was being projected onto the wall on his left.

The image was backwards, but Mac knew what it was. There was what looked like an old timey nurse's hat with blood dripping off of it, with the word 'Loading...' underneath it. Beneath both of those were smaller words that changed every ten seconds or so, but Mac couldn't quite read them.

Frowning, the agent stood up and walked over to the backpack on the hook. It wasn't like a schoolkid's backpack—this one was probably intended for hiking. When he opened it, he found it was empty except for his knife. He took the knife out and put it in his pocket, then zipped up the pack and grabbed it, slinging it over both shoulders and bucking the straps in front, making sure the bag was tight to his body so that it wouldn't hinder him if he had to run. He knew what Murdoc was going for, here—the loading screen made that obvious.

He was in a real-life video game. Horror genre. And set in some kind of hospital, if the nurse's hat was any indication.

He was player 1.

The glasses were probably hiding a camera—that would explain the insistence on keeping them. Some kind of first-person setup. Which made the backpack his inventory.

Once the bag was secure, Mac looked around again, this time spotting a door that he'd missed the first time, tucked away in the corner, on the same wall as the projection. It, too, was painted black, and recessed into the wall, making it hard to spot. The blond agent walked over to it and saw that it had the word 'START' painted in small white letters in the middle of the door. With one more deep breath, he pushed it open.

He was certainly right about the horror aspect. And the hospital aspect.

A sign on the far wall behind the front desk proclaimed the hospital to be the Pleasant Peaks Mental Hospital, but Mac called that name into question as his eyes scanned the surrounding area.

There was a lot of blood.

There was a pool of it on and in front of the main desk, originating from the body of a woman dressed in an old nurse's uniform, and three other pools in the lobby, belonging to—judging by the uniforms—two orderlies and a janitor. 

Mac did not want to know whether or not the bodies were real.

There were smears of blood as well, on the floors and walls, from hands and feet presumably belonging to the killer or killers. Or at least, that was the narrative Mac was expected to come up with.

The phone on the agent's arm vibrated, and Mac looked down to find another message on the screen in small white letters.

_ Objective: Find the main office. _

Easy enough to start.

The main office was probably near the front of the building—where he was at that moment. There was a door to his right and his left, and Mac tried the one on his right first. The door deposited him into what looked like a conference room, but apart from the table and chairs, it was empty. Knowing he had to keep moving, Mac quickly made his way over to the opposite door. This one was a restroom. With a small sigh, the blond agent backed out and ventured a little further into the bloody room.

There were three more doors in the more open part of the room, one on his left and two on his right. The one on his right that was closest to the front desk looked far more secure than either of the other two, this one metal as opposed to wood and seemingly outfitted with alarms and magnetic locks. Probably led into the patient center.

Of the two remaining doors, only one of them had a blood trail coming out of it.

One guess as to where Murdoc wanted him to go.

Mac carefully picked his way across the blood-spattered floor, tiptoeing around pools and smears of it, trying for several reasons not to get it on his shoes. He'd heard nothing so far—absolutely nothing, not even the sounds of the settling building—but he could be reasonably sure that he was severely outnumbered by hostiles. Best if they couldn't see where he'd been.

He made it to the door and pushed it open, and when he did, he found that he was right again.

The office apparently belonged to a Doctor Ellicott, according to the awards and accolades hanging on the wall opposite the desk. There wasn't as much blood inside as Mac thought there would be, but there was spatter on the wall and obvious signs of a struggle. The room had been trashed, file cabinets tipped, chairs broken and overturned, the desk at an angle. Mac had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for, so he decided to start with the desk—normally, logic would dictate that if anything important had been on the desk, it would have probably ended up on the floor, but this was a video game, after all.

He had to shuffle the various papers around, but he discovered a work order for the company embroidered on his shirt. Evidently, he—or his character—had been hired to fix the master cell controls for the south and east wings.

Great. Trapped in a psych hospital where the cells don't lock properly. Exactly how he wanted his day to go.

Mac let his breath out through his nose in a quiet sigh, then turned his attention to the drawers, pulling them open one by one and searching them. He found a box of large paperclips, which he pocketed; a handful of pens, one of which he snagged; several seemingly random pieces of paper; and, most promisingly, a map.

Actually, more like four maps, stapled together. One for each of the four wings. Out of curiosity, Mac took a closer look at the south and east wings.

Which were designed to house the violent and/or criminally insane patients.

Of course they were. Why would he expect any different?

The phone on his arm buzzed again, and Mac looked at it and found that it now had a map icon in the lower left corner. When he tapped it, it pulled up virtual images of the maps in his hand, and he could swipe through the wings and even zoom in if he wanted.

In theory, that rendered the paper copies useless.

Provided, of course, that Murdoc didn’t alter them.

Mac slipped the paper copies into his back pocket and continued searching the room. He found several patient files amongst the debris—a couple of them spattered with blood—and he took the time to skim them, memorizing the attached pictures and reminding himself that everything in this room had been planted; Murdoc wanted him to find these. Yes, it could be a distraction tool, but Murdoc did stress ‘the power of preparedness’ during the encounter that kicked it all off.

He’d just finished reading that a south wing patient named Benny was obsessed with otters when a sound finally broke the silence. That metal door slamming. Voices. And then, startlingly enough, intense music piped into his ear by what he quickly realized was an earpiece. It was small enough that Mac hadn’t noticed it before, but he certainly wanted to rip it out now.

The phone on his arm buzzed, and he glanced at it for just a second—long enough to see the word ‘hide’ in the middle of the screen—before quickly searching for a hiding spot.

Under the desk was too obvious. He’d be found immediately. Behind the filing cabinets? No; moving them enough would be too noisy and time-consuming. His eyes then fell on a cabinet that was now on the floor in front of the blacked-out window. It was about the size of a footlocker, and had been propped up on roughly eighteen-inch-tall legs. It had large, wide doors on the front of it. It had been tipped in the struggle and was now front-down on the floor with the doors open.

He could easily fit under it, so that’s what he did. Quiet as he could manage, the blond agent tipped the cabinet up, crawled under it, and settled it back in place maybe five seconds before the door was thrown violently open.

Mac stayed perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe as he listened. There was a slight crack between the cabinet and the floor caused by the open doors allowing him to see out. He could see two pairs of feet, the shoes and pant legs spattered in blood.

“See, I told you,” one slightly-nasal male voice chimed in. “We’re late to the party; the others got to the doc first.”

“God  _ DAMMIT! _ ” the other man, his voice much more booming, shouted in frustration, taking a step forward and kicking the cabinet under which Mac was hiding. Thankfully, the legs of the cabinet were almost against the wall anyway, and prevented it from moving too much, but still, the blond man had to clamp a hand hard over his nose and mouth to silence himself, scrambling back an inch or two so that they couldn’t possibly see a finger or bit of his arm sticking out, his movements covered by the sound of the cabinet’s reverberations.

“Easy, big guy,” the nasal voice laughed. “Let’s go find ‘em; maybe we can still get in on the fun stuff.”

The larger man heaved a sigh. “I wanted to smash his skull.”

“I know,” the nasal voice commiserated. “I wanted to pull out his teeth. C’mon; maybe we can get in on it still.”

The second man grumbled his agreement, and presumably his companion patted him on the back by the sound, and then the pair shuffled out. Mac didn’t move a muscle, straining to listen. He heard a fleshy thunk, like someone falling bonelessly to the floor, followed by an industrial lock click and the heavy metal door opening. After a few beats, it slammed shut. Mac gave it a ten-count before he finally eased himself out of his hiding place. He took a minute, calming himself on his knees before he got up and did one more quick search of the office. This time, he found a phone charger cable. No plug, but still might come in handy, so he snagged it and put it in the outside zipper pocket of his backpack. Then, he ventured out into the main area again.

The second his foot crossed the threshold, the phone buzzed.

_ Objective: Find the security office. _

Alright, then.

He pulled up the map on the phone, and quickly found that the whole building—not just the wings—was included on the virtual map, whereas the paper one only showed the wings.

The building consisted of a square central hub—what Mac was standing in—and four wings. The south and east wings were walled off, inside and out, to contain the violent inmates. There was a chapel set up between the two wings, bridging them together, on the second floor. After scanning the wings, he realized that the security office was not in either wing, but rather above him, in the central hub. Through the metal door at the far side of the room, there would be a long hallway that looped all the way around the hub, giving access to all four wings as well as the stairs to the second floor.

In other words, getting through that door—which those two apparent patients had just gone through—was not optional.

Mac picked his way through the room, careful of the blood, and beelined for the janitor, first. Searching the man, he found that the body was indeed real, and he quickly snagged the man's ID badge and keyring. He opened the last door in the main space and found some kind of waiting room. Nothing useful, just chairs and magazines.

He was then left with the last door.

Mac took a deep breath to prepare himself, then made his way over to the metal door. It was locked, as he expected, but he quickly realized that the janitor's keyring could not open the magnetic lock. Nor could his ID; there wasn't even anything to scan it. With a flip-flopping stomach, the agent slowly turned back to the main desk. The boneless drop sound he'd heard earlier was from the head nurse, whose body had slid off the desk and onto the floor. Her white uniform was dyed a deep red, and her eyes were only half closed. Mac shook his head and made himself focus. He walked towards the desk, and on a hunch, felt along the bottom of it until he found a button. Pressing it, he heard the magnetic lock release, but when he let go to walk towards the door, he heard them re-engage.

The door would only be unlocked as long as someone was holding the button.

Letting out a sigh, Mac hesitantly picked through the desk. He found a large binder clip—splashed with blood—and snagged both it and a tissue, wiping off the blood. He clipped it around the end of the desk, and the locks did click, but when he let go of the clip, it snapped off the desk, and Mac barely managed to catch it. He frowned and tried again, but got the same result; the clip just didn’t have enough grip on the slick counter. He started looking around for something else he could use when the phone on his arm vibrated again. There was a new icon—a hammer and screwdriver—beside the map icon on the screen, blinking rapidly at him. Frowning slightly, he tapped it. The hammer and screwdriver got bigger to take up the middle of the screen, then blinked off, replaced by words.

_ Crafting: You can combine objects to get you through each objective. If the chosen objects can’t be combined, you will receive an audio cue. Failure to heed the audio cue will result in a penalty. You have 3 passes to do what you want within reason, but using those passes will also incur a penalty. _

Mac frowned, but turned back to the desk, opening drawers and digging though until he came up with two rubber bands. He wrapped them around the top and bottom parts of the clip, then clipped it over the button again. This time, it stayed put, and the door stayed unlocked. And no audio cue. The blond agent took a breath to prepare himself, then walked over and opened the door, stepping into the loop.

It wasn’t as bloody as the main room, but there were smears and footprints, mostly between the south and east wing doors and the door through which Mac had just entered. There were also a few bloody footprints coming from the direction he had to go to get to the stairs.

Better that they were coming  _ from _ the stairs than only going  _ to  _ them.

Well, better for him, anyway.

Not wanting to waste time, the agent made his way towards the stairwell. He peered through the safety glass window in the door, and found the stairwell to be a bit bloodier than the hallway. There was a body on the landing directly ahead, up half a flight of stairs, and while one of the lights in the lower part of the stairs was out, one of the ones on the upper part was flickering, giving an already-eerie setting an added layer of visceral discomfort.

Mac shook his head, then pushed the door open. Or, tried to. The door seemed stuck. The blond agent pushed harder, and frowned and then swallowed a gag when he realized that there was another body behind the door, preventing it from opening easily. It looked like one of the security guards, though his face was shredded; Mac couldn’t make out any real features.

Suppressing a shudder, he slipped between the door and the wall when he had it open a crack and stepped over the body, letting the door close behind him. After a second, he also reached down and dragged the body away from the door; if he had to make a quick getaway, he didn’t want anything between him and the exit. Then, he made his way upstairs, going slow and quiet. The whole place was eerily silent, like it was constantly preparing for a jumpscare. And maybe it was; Murdoc certainly wasn’t above that.

Mac’s whole body was rigid as he approached the top landing and peered through the safety glass window. There were more bodies. Two that he could see, one of them appearing to be a patient. The agent eased open the door as quietly as he could, cringing at the retort from the hinges—which seemed about five million times louder than it probably was. Tiptoeing and holding his breath, he picked his way through the minefield of blood and bodies. The security office was the room directly to his left. The door was propped open by a body’s leg, with the other leg bent at a grotesque angle. Mac’s jaw tightened, but he pushed open the door. There were two security guards inside—both deceased—and while the one preventing the door from closing looked like he’d just been...torn apart, the other man looked like he’d sustained a single gunshot to the back left side of the head. Part of his face had exploded outwards. Which was strange, because neither guard had a gun on them—not even a holster. That, of course, made sense, as it was hardly a good idea to let mental patients, especially those housed in the east and south wings, anywhere near a firearm.

But then how did this man get shot?

Images of that crime scene they uncovered with Riley's prints all over it flashed across his mind, and his stomach churned unhappily. He quickly tore his eyes away, searching both bodies and coming up with one security badge, which he slipped into his pocket. Then he turned his eyes to the screens.

It was the same display as he'd expect to see in any current video game or horror movie. A wall of small, flatpanel monitors, some with static or scrolling lines through them, displaying various parts of the hospital. Many of them showed motion; people dressed in patient garb shuffling through post-apocalyptic hallways. The monitors were labeled, but with some kind of two letter—two number code, and Mac tucked away that detail for later as he took a quick inventory.

At least fifty people, assuming that anything he was seeing was live, and not staged. Rapid movement near the bottom of the stack caught his attention; a patient was prowling around what looked like a gymnasium of some kind, occasionally attacking the doors with his hands and feet. Even as he watched, the screen blinked and flipped to a different view, and Mac took a step back and quickly detected the pattern.

So he was only seeing maybe half of the total number of cameras at any given time. This room was going to be a major time sink.

Assuming he had a timer...

Mac tore his gaze from the monitors to the desk, scanning it for clues. Two procedural binders—and a third on the floor, obviously knocked there in the struggle. A cup of stale, room temperature coffee that had something floating in it, Mac didn't bother to fish it out. The console in front of him was filled with different control panels and buttons, and was sporting a gaping rectangular hole, about the size of a car's radio display. Three cables were poking out. Two of the cables were intact; the third had clearly been harder to unscrew and been hacked off with something sharp.

His wrist vibrated, and Mac barely even glanced at it. The mission here was obvious.

_ Objective: Fix the master cell controls _

And clearly he was going to find the missing box on one of these camera feeds.

Mac started studying them in earnest, trying to assemble what he could see into something that matched his map. He found the gymnasium with its trapped and furious prisoner back on display, so he started there, fishing the map out of his back pocket. He located the gym, which was in a connecting corridor between the south and east wings, and then looked back up to find that the screen was now displaying a hallway, where an overturned gurney, stained with blood, was perfectly framed.

No guarantee it was the hallway outside the gymnasium. No little rectangular cell control module in sight.

Mac glanced at the next screen over, finding a patient room, with what looked like a nurse strapped down to a rail-less gurney with an electroconvulsive therapy machine parked haphazardly beside her. Electrodes had been attached to her forehead, and that was when he actually looked at her face, and realized who it was.

Riley was dressed in a nurse's white uniform—pristinely white, for now. The cut of it suggested a naughty nurse Halloween costume more than an actual uniform. She was holding quite still, he wasn't sure she was conscious, but just before the screen flipped, he thought he saw her eyes blink open.

Then she was gone, and he was looking at a completely raided supply closet.

Mac stared at the screen a second, knowing it would cycle through in fifteen seconds, and scanned the front console for anything that would allow him to have audio—either hear her, or better yet, speak to her. There was a mini-USB port on the front of each flatpanel, and Mac slipped the backpack off one shoulder, pulling it to the front of his body and fishing out the charger cable he'd found downstairs.

Mini USB to mini USB. He could connect the screen to his phone.

Mac made quick work of it, attaching one end and waiting impatiently until the feed was back on Riley before plugging in the cable. Sure enough, the phone's screen lit up with a notification.

**Sync Feed?**

His options were **OK** or **Cancel** , and Mac tapped **OK**.

An activity bar appeared, moving pretty rapidly, and with a heavy clunk, every screen in the room died.

Mac froze, listening, and he heard a distant shout. A glance at the hallway showed the lights were dead out there, too, and then Mac's phone vibrated.

**Sync Failed**

He scowled at the phone and swiped away the notification, and the screen was black for a second before it lit back up.

_ Objective: Find and repair the generator _


	5. Exam 3, Part 2

_ Objective: Find and repair the generator _

"Great," he muttered aloud, then plucked the cable from the screen and tucked it back into the backpack. He pulled up the map, this time on the phone, and used it to start expanding the central control hub. Since all the wings spread out from this center point, chances were the generators would either be on the roof—or in the basement.

He checked the basement first—this being a horror video game—and sure enough, there was a room that would match building code to a generator for a facility this big. It wasn't labeled, but there was a large rectangle along one wall of that room he was willing to bet was the generator itself. That room was accessible from two different doors, and each one led to a series of other rooms before intersecting a main hallway. Plenty of opportunities for something—or someone—to interrupt him.

Not to mention, it was a basement, and the lights were out.

Mac scanned the phone but didn't see a handy flashlight icon, so he pulled his SAK out of his pocket. Battery would be good for about an hour, and he didn't intend to spend near that amount of time down there. With a last glance at the map, committing it to memory as best he could, Mac resecured the backpack and took a deep breath, then picked his way back to the door to the main hall.

Despite that shout earlier, neither of the two men he knew had to be up here  _ somewhere  _ were in sight. It was shorter to go back the way he'd come, but if he made the whole loop and explored he was more likely to find 'clues' or other helpful gear.

And more likely to have additional encounters.

Knowing that he had two objectives now—find the master cell control module, which would be critical for getting to Riley, and fix the generator, since the master cell controls were useless without it—Mac steeled himself and forged ahead, down the half of the circular hallway he hadn't already traveled.

It was clear he wasn't the first.

Mac picked around the smeared blood carefully, seeing evidence of others who had not been as careful, and one such party had entered a door on the right-hand side of the hallway. There was no guarantee the person was still in there, and no way to secure the door even if they were, so Mac bypassed it without entering. He found another body, an orderly whose uniform had been half ripped off, and didn't bother to investigate that, either. The next door on his left, however, had no bloody smears near it, nor on the doorhandle, and Mac pressed his ear to it, trying to listen beyond the pulse pounding in his ears.

Nothing.

It was a lever-style handle, and Mac considered silently depressing it to see what might happen, but it occurred to him it was an internal room and the power was out—no one was going to see the movement and investigate. And rattling it would be just as much a tipoff to anyone else around as it would be to whoever might be in the room, so Mac went ahead and simply opened it, as smoothly as possible, and then hopped back.

Nothing happened. The interior of the room was dark.

A quick scan with the SAK found a longue. Chairs, desks and computers lined one wall. Couches the other. And hanging from the middle of the room, strung up with an extension cord attached to the overhead ceiling fan, was a dead man in a suit.

Mac hesitated, then entered the room, closing the door behind him before checking it again for anyone alive. Finding no one, he grimaced and patted the swinging body down.

He got a wallet—complete with cash, which he stuffed into his other back pocket to examine later—and a set of keys. The ring was mangled, someone had already torn one off—probably a vehicle key, since the other keys seemed too small. Mac pocketed those as well, then eyed the extension cord that had been wrapped repeatedly around the man's throat before it had tangled into the ceiling fan.

It was a movie trope he hated; there wasn't enough power in a prosumer ceiling fan motor to do anything even close to hauling up two hundred pounds of swinging, struggling human. And sure enough, the cord didn't look frayed or damaged, but it was wedged and tangled up in the workings of the fan like it meant it.

An extension cord could come in very handy. He'd just have to spend the time to get the body down and unravel it.

Mac decided against it, made a mental note of where it was in case he did need it, and listened for silence from the hallway before he eased the door open and continued.

There were two more doors, both showing evidence of entrance after violence, and Mac bypassed them both and found himself at the stairwell. He took it back down, dodging the same puddles of blood, and listened intently for any other movement. Once again, the hallway was utterly still.

He took a single step onto the main floor and violins exploded in a cacophony in his ear.

Mac flinched hard, leaping back several stairs, but it was just the soundtrack being piped into his ear. Once he swallowed his heart back into his chest, Mac again ventured out into the main hall, only as far as the door the map indicated led to the basement. The glass window, crisscrossed with metal webbing to ensure it couldn't be shattered, was utterly black.

There were several bloody footprints in front of it, and something heavy had been dragged through them.

Waiting was just going to get him eventually caught by the two patients in the central core with him, so Mac tried the door—which was unlocked, they all were now that the power was out—and pulled it open the bare minimum, slipping through and using his body to block as much light as possible.

The air inside the stairwell was humid and earthy, and significantly warmer than the hallway air. No A/C, his brain supplied, but then he became aware of a hissing sound. Mac covered the end of his SAK flashlight with a finger, then dared to click it on, and used the diffused beam to locate where the stairs started.

More blood. What or whoever had been dragged in here had been dragged down those stairs.

Sticking as close to the wall bannister as he could, and using as little light as possible, Mac started down the stairs. The soundtrack was now pitched low and suspenseful, and again, Mac considered pitching the tiny earbuds.

With his luck, Murdoc had infrared cameras in here. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going to happen to Riley if he disobeyed.

She'd be treated to an electroshock therapy session. And if she screamed, if she made made noise, the roaming patients would be drawn to the sound.

Mac made it to the landing and down the last half of the stairs without encountering any more bodies. However, in front of the door leading into the basement hallway was a large puddle of blood, in the middle of which lay a single white sneaker, the kind an orderly or a nurse might wear.

Use the shoe or start tracking blood. Right now the lights were out so it wouldn't matter, but once they came back on, he'd leave an obvious trail.

Mac hesitated another second, then grimaced and hopped the blood puddle, landing one-footed on the small shoe. It squished, clearly soaked with blood, but didn't slide, and Mac laid his hands palm first on the door to keep his balance. It made a noise, but not much, and then he held his breath and tried to keep himself as still as possible.

Someone was whispering on the other side of the door.

It took him a second to decide if he actually heard it, or it was coming through the earpiece. And just because he heard it didn't mean it wasn't being broadcast by a speaker. It didn't matter anyway; the map showed only one door into the basement, and he was standing one-footed in front of it.

He put his thumb over his flashlight, plunging the stairwell into near-complete darkness, then he threw open the door as forcefully as he could.

He definitely had the element of surprise; whoever was whispering howled in fright and Mac realized that person was on his right. He pointed his relatively insignificant flashlight in that direction, aiming for eye level, and flicked back his thumb. It wasn't spot perfect but it was good enough; the person, wearing a dirty patient smock, flinched back at the unexpected light. It was a man, rather frail looking, matted hair and meth-stained teeth, and he took off, still howling, further into the hallway.

Mac glanced down, then awkwardly leapt the puddle of blood onto dingy tile, and the stairwell door swung heavily closed with a sharp clang of finality.

Since stealth was out the window, Mac chose speed, loping along the oddly barren hallway at a jog. It wasn't as pitch-dark as it had looked through the grimy glass window of the stairwell door; when he rounded a corner, a weak emergency light was trying to eke out what power it could from a battery that probably expired twenty years earlier. There was a heavy haze in the air, like a steam pipe somewhere was leaking, lending the thin light a creepy ethereal quality. It showed him a view he'd seen upstairs in the security room before the power had gone out.

Doors everywhere, some half-ajar. Two bodies, one slumped against the wall as if the patient had simply gone to sleep and never woken, the other a twisted up orderly, with a clearly broken pelvis.

The body that had been dragged down the stairs.

The patient he'd frightened was nowhere to be seen. So, hiding in one of the rooms. His howling didn't seem to have attracted anyone else.

Searching the rooms first might save him time during the repair, but without knowing what he was looking for, it wasn't the most efficient use of his time. So Mac ignored the rooms for now, putting out his light and relying on ambient, jogging as quickly as he dared down the long hallway. If his map held, there'd be a corridor on the right—

And there was.

Mac threw a quick glance over his shoulder, but people hadn't suddenly emerged from the rooms like triggered monsters; the hallway behind him looked empty. There was another emergency light in the maintenance corridor, giving off a sickening flicker, and Mac scanned the floor for any trip hazards before he hurried along.

This time the soundtrack was timed perfectly with his howling friend

Mac leapt back with a startled exclamation, and the patient shouted back, still sounding frantic, and rushed past him. The man stank of old sweat and urine, clearly he'd been down here awhile, and his bare feet slapped on the tile for a few seconds before there was a skidding sound of skin on dust, and then a door slammed.

That was fine with Mac. He started again—a little more carefully this time—down the maintenance corridor, to the metal door with an observation window. Rather than shine his flashlight in, Mac stepped behind where it would swing out and again, forcefully wrenched it open.

This time the force was needed; the hinges screeched painfully loudly, and he was certain he heard something moving around inside the room before it became completely silent. Mac gave it a five count, but nothing else happened, so he eased his head around the door and looked inside.

No light to speak of.

Mac crossed the threshold quickly, so he wasn't silhouetted long, and this time he was  _ certain  _ he heard fabric rustling. He clicked his flashlight back on, scanning what appeared to be storeroom shelves covered in linens. Some were still folded, as if they'd just been freshly laundered, but someone—or several someones—had torn through and swiped many of the shelves bare. There were piles of patient gowns and bedsheets on the floor, several large enough to conceal a full-grown man.

A stack of still-intact patient gowns had been swiped to the side of their shelf and collapsed like a slinky, and Mac was made very aware of his costume. He looked like a technician. Any patient that saw him knew what he was—potentially an enemy, certainly an authority figure. Like an orderly or a doctor.

But if he was just another patient—even one with a backpack—then he was just one of them, who'd stolen the pack off someone else. It didn't mean he wouldn't be attacked, but it would certainly be a better disguise than what he was currently wearing.

Mac gave the piles a wide berth, plucking up a gown, and then backed into a corner with shelving still intact. He balanced his swiss army knife on an empty shelf, leaving the flashlight shining into the room, hoping to keep who or whatever was in there with him in hiding themselves, and grabbed the hem of his shirt.

A game show buzzer shrieked out of his wrist.

Mac flinched again, then curbed a curse and glared at the phone. The crafting icon was flashing, with a red X across it. He had two options, CANCEL or PASS, but the PASS button was greyed out.

The meaning was clear. He was not allowed to change his costume.

"Come on," he muttered angrily, but the crafting icon stayed frustratingly crossed out. Mac wadded up the patient gown—but then thought better of it, and snatched up his flashlight, keeping the gown for now.

Cloth was a very useful item, and these gowns were designed not to be easily torn. It might come in handy, even if he wasn't allowed to wear it.

Mac considered closing the door, so that the sound of it would tip him off that he was about to get company, but the idea of locking whoever was down there with him  _ in  _ with him wasn't appealing. He used the flashlight to scan the rest of the shelves, hoping to spot the master cell control module, but there was nothing. Just another door at the end of the room.

Leaving the clothing piles alone, Mac pressed forward.

The next room was additional storage, cleaning products. He had no doubt the products were real, because someone had tried drinking them. He was quite dead, eyes wide and mouth misshapen and clearly burned with something extremely caustic. The smell alone told him this body was one hundred percent real, and Mac actually brought the back of his hand up to his mouth to stifle his gag, and held his breath as he hurriedly scanned the rest of the room with his flashlight.

All of the cleaning products had been opened, many spilled. Clearly he was not going to be permitted to use chemistry during this 'exam.' With nothing else leaping out at him as useful except perhaps a wooden push-mop handle, Mac tried to ignore his prickling, burning lungs and hurried to the next door.

This room was also pitch dark, and he could tell by the echo of it that he'd made it to the generator room. He slammed the door behind him, again hoping the noise would spook anyone in there, and hurried blindly along the rightmost wall a few steps before he dared to take a breath. He tripped over something about table height that slid across the floor with a metallic screech of protest, and quickly identified it as a desk. Once he could trust his gut not to bring up the last thing he'd deposited into it—the apple juice Murdoc gave him—Mac took inventory of the space.

This room was quite large, with a higher ceiling than the others to account for code. The generators themselves were trashed, it looked like someone had pulled an Office Space and whaled on them with the pipe wrench he spotted on the floor. There was blood in here, too, but not much, more drips than splatters, so the destruction had also taken its toll on the perpetrators.

Without question this damage had not been done in the last few minutes, it was part of the game, so he didn't hesitate to approach the less crumpled of the devices and peer inside.

There were a few components bent, but the damage to the chassis was far greater than the internal damages. He'd need a new engine belt, or need to fashion one, maybe from the patient linens in that first room. The alternator was straight up missing, it was probably hidden in the one of the rooms down here, but whoever had taken it out had also ripped out the harness wire, so he'd need to find some wire as well, at least 12-gauge, maybe salvage it from the more damaged genny—

Frighteningly strong hands clapped down on his upper back, and Mac was violently shoved head-first into the generator.

He just managed to get his eyes shut before his forehead connected sharply with the pulley arm and had him seeing stars. He kicked up a leg behind him blindly and got a glancing blow at his attacker's groin, earning him a pained grunt and just enough wiggle room to yank himself back out of the generator. The fingers still on his upper back clawed into him, keeping tight hold of his shirt, so Mac braced both feet against the generator and kicked off hard, shoving them both back into the room. His opponent tripped and went down, and MacGyver curled himself up and jerked hard to the right, tearing his body and shirt away from his opponent.

His swiss army knife was gone, he'd dropped it into the generator, so that there was almost no light in the room. Mac used that to his advantage, scuttling as soundlessly as he could into the empty middle of the room, and trying to keep whoever was attacking him between himself and what thin outlines of light were peeking through the beat-up generator chassis. Sound helped, too; the guy was panting hard, a groan on every exhale as he fought to straighten up.

"...you pigfucker, I'm gonna hurt you real good for that!" he roared, stumbling a few steps to the right, and Mac matched him, keeping the guy between him and the generator.

There was a pipe wrench on the floor. He'd seen it when he came in, it was closer to the door he'd entered—

Mac was absolutely blinded by a sharp beam of white light, and whatever flashlight this guy had scavenged, it put his little one to shame. The second the guy had him spotlighted, he charged with a wordless roar, and Mac backpedaled frantically, then tripped and fell—back into the same damn metal desk.

His attacker shouted in triumph and Mac rolled hard left as something heavy struck the desk where his head had been less than a second before. It shattered—so much for the flashlight—and Mac caught a glancing backhand as the screaming man tried and failed to grab him. Still blinded by the afterimage of the flashlight beam, Mac scurried across the floor, keeping low and dragging his fingers on the gritty concrete for that damn wrench.

"And then I'm gonna make sure you're dead, you piece of shit!"

With a menacing growl the other guy charged him again—now Mac was the silhouette against whatever light was still visible inside the generator chassis—and took them both to the ground. Mac's chest landed painfully on the object of his search, but the weight on his back was too much, he couldn't get a hand under him until his right shoulder was grabbed and nearly pulled out of socket as his attacker forced him onto his back and moved to choke him.

Mac shouted in pain but used the momentum, grabbing the pipe wrench left handed and nailing the man across the face. He thought he heard a jaw crack, maybe break, and then the body on top of his collapsed, crushing all the air in his lungs out with a whoosh and a weak cough.

He took a second to gather himself, still blinking rapidly and trying to breathe, and then squirmed out from under the unconscious man. His right shoulder wasn't dislocated but it was certainly unhappy, and he rolled both carefully as he stumbled back to the generator and fished out his swiss army knife.

On the way back up he saw that the phone was remarkably still intact—had to be gorilla glass—and had a new command for him.

_ GLASSES _

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he growled without thinking, but rather than risk anything happening to Riley, he quickly added "Fine, give me a second," and painfully leaned up, scanning the interior of the generator until he located them.

The glasses were toast. One arm was broken off, and one lens was deeply scratched. Mac frowned at the frames, searching them to see if the camera he suspected was built in was still intact, and his arm vibrated.

_ DESK DRAWER _

Mac glanced over at it—and at the patient, and it  _ was  _ a patient, same pajamas as the others—and gave the seemingly unconscious man a wide berth. The drawers were old and bent, but the large, flat drawer across the top held a few broken pencil nubs, and a pair of black-framed glasses.

So there were spares, in case Mac didn't manage to avoid getting punched in the face. Fabulous. With a resigned sigh he put them on his face, wincing a little as he discovered the nosepiece of the last pair had bitten into the bridge of his nose.

It turned out his patient gown came in very handy; Mac used a piece of the flashlight lens glass to cut the fabric into strips and bind the hands and feet of the unconscious man. As an afterthought, he also gagged him, and dragged the body to the far wall, where he couldn't get into any trouble. There was no buzzer sound, and the crafting icon on his phone didn't have an X, so apparently that much he was allowed to do.

Once that was done, it was time to go shopping.

He went back the way he'd originally come, holding his breath preemptively as he passed through the cleaning closet and giving whoever was hiding in the rag piles a chance to hear him coming before he entered that room as well. The noisy door to the maintenance corridor was still open, so it was possible whoever was in there was gone—or had been the guy who attacked him. He'd grab some bedsheets and fashion a pulley belt with them on the way back.

What he needed right now was wire and an alternator. Plus the missing master cell control module and a cable. He had absolutely no idea where to find any of them—well, he had a backup plan for the wire, but untangling that body from the ceiling fan upstairs didn't appeal to him in the slightest. And until he got the generator fixed, he couldn't even see Riley. Make sure she was still okay.

Trying to shrug off his impatience—he knew it would cause him to make mistakes—Mac rolled his shoulders again, adjusted the straps of his backpack, and set off back into the maintenance corridor.

The lighting was actually worse now than it had been the first time he'd walked through the hallway; the amount of steam in the air had almost doubled, making it difficult to see more than a few yards ahead. Couple that with the sickly light from the few working emergency lights, and his own little flashlight might as well be a beacon screaming 'come get me.' Mac pulled up the electronic map on the phone, scanning the rooms around him for a clue.

None of the rooms down here were labeled, but zooming into them showed him details, including in some cases rectangles that he assumed was shelving—so, storage rooms—and the mens and womens bathrooms were easy enough to puzzle out. It would be a typical video game trope for something to be hidden in there, since most people were averse to sewer pits, so Mac headed uneasily further up the main corridor.

He checked every room he came across. The first one was locked, and the dead suit guy's keys didn't seem to be a match. The ones that were ajar, Mac kept up with his forceful opening of doors—the light gave him away, after all, so the best he could do was pretend to be dangerous. He found mostly storage, already ransacked.

And a patient, asleep on a bed of cardboard boxes, covered with plastic bags.

Mac turned the light to the floor instantly and shielded it with his hand, so that only diffuse light hit the sleeping man, but he seemed to be out like he meant it. He had a small sack, made of the same fabric as the reusable grocery bags that had become so popular, and it struck Mac as an odd detail. In this room, too, the stench of unwashed human was quite strong, and it occurred to him that he hadn't smelled body odor on the patient who attacked him in the generator room.

So some of them had been down here a while, but some not...?

Tucking the question to the back of his brain, Mac left sleeping crazy man to lie and after a cursory examination of the room didn't yield anything useful, he pulled the door mostly closed behind him, and continued on.

On the opposite side of the hallway, Mac came across a different door than the others. This one had a kickplate and a combination lock on the doorknob. He tried it anyway, hoping the power outage had made it fail open, but no such luck. It was a five digit code he was looking for, and Mac scowled at this new obstacle for a second, then started scanning the doorframe and nearby walls. Typically if you had a combination door, it was used by too many people to enforce a key, so naturally, someone would write it down in case they forgot it, and it should be somewhere...

Along the edge of the doorframe, he finally found some numbers. One, five, four, two, three. Starting at the opposite ends of the five buttons and working their way in. A pattern that would be easier to remember than the numbers themselves.

Mac situated himself in front of the door and tried it, and the doorknob turned easily in his hands.

Relieved that it hadn't been more complicated, forcing him to go back up to the security office or search other rooms for random codes on walls, Mac gave the room a cursory sweep, and got his second positive surprise of the day; he'd found the telephony closet. The place all telephone wires came into the building. There was a handset on the wall that he immediately picked up, giving a wry little sigh when he found it dead. That was too easy, after all.

But the closet very likely had useful things in it. Like the cable he was going to need to reconnect the cell control module when he found the damn thing.

There was no light in the room, the emergency light was dead, but there was no other sound nor smell of other humans, and Mac made sure the door had closed behind him before he started a thorough search of the room. Racks of telephony equipment, dating back to the eighties, and a few nods to twenty-first century networking there in the back.

And sure enough, a wall full of network cables. Exactly what he'd need to re-connect the cell control module.

Mac made a beeline for the wall, popping his SAK into his mouth and grabbing an old server. It slid fairly easily out of the rack, telling him he was on the right track. Groping along the back netted him two network cables, and he unplugged one and let it drop, then shoved the server back into the rack and knelt down to find the unsecured end of the cable.

It was a nest of cords and wires back there—sadly nothing robust enough to use with the generator—and Mac pressed his forehead to the server rack, mindful of the glasses, and inserted his left arm as deeply into the rack as he could get, fumbling with the cables and trying to find the one with give. Steam puffed against his right cheek, that was going to be a problem because humidity and technology didn't mix, he might have to dry out that cell control module if it was down here—

There were no steam or water pipes in a telephony closet, for exactly that reason.

The puff came again, hot and moist, this time with a little odor, and Mac froze absolutely still.

"What makes you think you can take that?" The voice was a low growl, and Mac flicked his eyes to look. To his surprise, he recognized the face that was parked mere inches from the side of his face. It was one of the patients he'd found a file on in the main office. He scrabbled for a name as he cleared his throat and slowly brought his right hand up to grab the SAK from his mouth, aiming the light at the man's chest.

"...well, if you weren't here, nothing would stop me," Mac pointed out. "And I didn't know you were here."

To his surprise, the patient—Benny!—actually smiled and chuckled, leaning back a bit and letting Mac let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Fair enough," the man allowed. He was massive, standing at at least 6'3", with bulging arms and short-cropped hair. There was some blood on his clothes and his hands, but it looked like he'd at least tried to clean up. "Didn't think you'd be waking up again. Helluva hit."

Mac blinked in confusion, then decided to play along, keeping his arm deep in the server rack and trying to recall more of the file he'd read on this guy.

"Yeah...yeah, it really was."

"...so what do you have to give me for that cable?"

“What?” Mac blinked in confusion

“Nothing in this life is free,” Benny smirked.

“Right...” Mac frowned to himself, thinking for a minute. Then his eyes lit up and he put the SAK back in his mouth and fumbled for the wallet in his back pocket. He pulled it free, opened it, and plucked out the driver's license without even looking at it, pocketing that and handing the rest over to the large man standing in front of him. Benny raised an eyebrow, then smirked and took it from him, opening it and inspecting the contents.

“Alright, man,” he agreed. “You can take whatever cable you want.”

Mac grabbed the light again and smiled. “Thanks.” 

Benny nodded and retreated into the dark room while the Phoenix agent finally freed up the cable and plucked it out. It was a bit shorter than he’d anticipated, but he hoped it would do the trick. He put it away in the outside pocket of his backpack, but as he was securing the pack to himself again, the beam of his light fell across the desk that Benny had moved to. He had a shiny silver box on the desk he’d commandeered. The alternator.

“How much for that?” he asked casually. Benny glanced over at him, then followed his eyes to the alternator, chuckling.

“You’re gonna have to make me one hell of an offer to get me to hand this over,” he told the agent. “It’s helping keep the demons out. They don’t like their own reflections, so even if one got through that door, I’m protected.”

“What about a mirror?” Mac suggested. This being a mental hospital, he was unlikely to be able to get the mirrors to shatter, but he could maybe find something in a guards’ locker room or—

“Can’t put ‘em in a mirror,” Benny shook his head, looking at the blond man almost pityingly. “They can hop between mirrors that way. You can only trap them if they see their reflection in something that’s not a mirror.”

Okay. Something that wasn't a mirror.

"I'll see what I can do," the agent promised, and then he made his way back towards the door, stepping into the steamy hallway.

He continued on his way quickly and quietly, unwilling to befriend another patient—he had a feeling it wouldn't go so well the second time around. He checked both of the bathrooms on his way back to the steps, knowing at least one probably contained something useful. The women's room smelled like several somethings had died in it and was absolutely covered in blood, so he decided that whatever was in there wasn't worth it just yet. Swallowing the bile that tried to escape his stomach, he checked the men's room.

Still bloody, but oddly cleaner, and the body that he saw near the sinks couldn't have been there too long, if the smell was any indication.

MacGyver carefully ventured inside and picked his way through the blood spatter to the body. As he approached, he realized two things. One, he and the body were wearing matching outfits. Two, the body had had its head bashed in on the sink.

The agent frowned at the gruesome display, finding a patch of clean—or, more accurately, unbloodied—tile to stop at. Despite the man's face being turned towards him, Mac couldn't really make out much of the man's features. The violent manner of his death had made certain of that. Pretty much the only physical descriptor besides approximate height and weight was that this man, under all the blood, had blond hair. But it was rather obvious to him that there was something under the body. With a silent apology to the dearly departed, Mac reached out and rolled the body over once.

Bingo.

There was the cell control module.

Without hesitation, Mac freed up his backpack and grabbed the box, putting it into the largest compartment and zipping it closed. As he was securing the pack to himself again, he heard a loud bang and a shout from somewhere more towards the generator room, and quickly made his way back towards the stairs and quickly realized that getting into the stairwell again was going to be much harder than getting out.

There was still a puddle of blood to contend with, but this time, no helpful shoe, and he had to pull the door open this time instead of pushing it. For a few moments, the blond man entertained the idea that, considering there were bloody footprints all over this damn place, avoiding the blood was just a time-waster and wouldn’t really give him much of an advantage.

It was still pretty easy to determine a freshly made bloody footprint from an older one. Best not risk it.

If he managed to jump from the shoe to the clean floor, then he could manage to jump from the clean floor back to the shoe. He just needed to figure out how to open the door.

It turned out that this was just a matter of forcing his muscles, still sore and aching from the explosion, to stretch out and reach the door handle. With one hand braced against the wall, he turned it and then pushed himself back upright, pulling the door open with him. It was a slightly awkward angle, bent slightly at the hips with one hand keeping the door open. Hard to generate enough power to reach the—

An unintelligible, rage-filled shout cut through the steam-sodden air from somewhere back the way he came, in the direction of the generator room, followed by running footsteps getting closer, and despite the heat, Mac felt a chill shoot down his spine. Intense music flared in his ears, doing nothing to calm him. He didn't wait to see who was yelling; adrenaline lent him all the power he needed as he leapt to the shoe and to the other side of the puddle in two bounds, letting the door slam behind him. He raced quickly up the stairs, mindful of the blood, and had just reached the main floor when he heard the door get yanked open below him.

Realizing he was truly getting chased, Mac started sprinting through the hallway that nearly looped the whole central hub. The first door he came to led to the east wing, and was propped open by half the leg of either an orderly or a security guard, if Mac had to guess based on the shoe.

He barely paid it any mind, yanking the door open and dashing into the east wing. Scanning his surroundings, he found that he was in a small hallway with two doors on his left and one straight ahead. What was probably the rest of the body belonging to the leg in the door was scattered about, blood pooling around the pieces, but Mac hardly paid attention. The footsteps behind him were getting louder, so he launched himself down the hall for the door straight ahead, leaping over the torso propping it open and immediately taking a hard right. The floor down this hallway, at least, wasn't even close to as bloody, so he didn't hold back as he ran, trying to envision the map in his head. At the end of the hall there was another door with a window in it, and he yanked it open, managing to get through it just as the torso door was ripped open behind him.

He was getting too close.

The door had deposited him into the east wing kitchen, but it looked like it had been picked clean—no knives, no utensils, not even a decent place to hide. He had just come around the island that was on wheels when the guy who had attacked him in the generator room burst in. On instinct, with his back against the service window, Mac shoved the wheeled island at his pursuer. This stunned him, but not for long; he responded in kind, pushing the island right back at him—but with far more force. Mac barely reacted in time to lift himself up with his hands on the service station, and he kicked the man in the jaw in an effort to propel himself backwards through the long, narrow opening. He fell uncoordinated to the floor, but he was on his feet in an instant, only barely pausing to note the other people in the room—three of them, dressed like patients and shuffling around seemingly catatonic.

His attacker lunged for him through the window, but Mac stayed back, quickly undoing his belt and sprinting to the kitchen door. He reached up and tightened the belt around the lever that controlled the speed at which the door closed, getting it as tight as he could and then threading the end into the loop he'd just made as many times as he could. He finished just in time; his pursuer started trying to force the door open as soon as he'd finished. The man howled in frustration, but Mac didn't stick around to hear what he had to say. Instead, he ran to the closest door and threw himself through it. A narrow hallway with doors on the left and right deposited him into the library. It was dark, eerily quiet, and rather expansive.

Mac decided to hide. He didn't want to keep getting pushed farther from his objective, and it stood to reason that there would be more threats in the wings, since Riley was around here somewhere. Looking for her at that moment, while tempting, would be pointless; Murdoc wouldn't even let it be possible for him to find her without first going through the whole game.

The room was exceptionally dark, save for what light was coming in through a large hole in the ceiling. At first, Mac thought it was a view of the outside, and it was around sunset or so. But as he inched closer, his feet silent on the industrial carpet, he realized that he wasn't seeing sunlight, but rather candlelight. When he got a tiny bit closer—though he was still a good twenty yards away—he could peer through the opening into the room above, and realized it was the chapel.

Maybe Mac could climb a bookshelf, slip up there, and lose his attacker for good...

The Phoenix agent began to venture between the shelves, remaining absolutely silent, his SAK and its light tucked safely away, inching closer to the opening and keeping one eye on the hallway from which he’d emerged, knowing that his trick with the belt wouldn’t keep his pursuer at bay for long.

He got past three shelves before he got a good look at the space under the hole in the ceiling. When he did, he froze in his tracks.

There were bodies. So many bodies. Most were dressed like patients, but there were some doctors, nurses, and orderlies thrown in. It looked like their throats had been slit.

God, there had to be at least fifteen of them, just in a pile, like it really was scenery from some kind of horror game. Inching a little closer, the smell finally hit him, and he gagged as he clamped a hand over his nose and mouth. At least one of the bodies had to be real, if not more. If not all.

A sudden sound made him jump, but it wasn’t from behind him; it was from above, from the chapel. Knowing that it was probably a bad idea to get spotted either from above or behind, Mac quickly relocated to a small sitting area, sheltering behind a threadbare couch. He still had a view of both the hole and the hall he’d come from, so he hunkered down and listened.

There were two distinct sets of heavy footsteps, and another set that was lighter and seemed to be sliding a bit on the floor. He could hear someone whispering urgently, but couldn’t quite hear what was being said.

“Ah,” a man’s voice spoke up from somewhere above the hole. “Have you found the shepherd or another lamb?”

“Okay, seriously, guys, I hate to ruin the scene, but I did not get this part of the script—I think you have the wrong guy,” another man’s voice—younger, slightly shaken—spoke up with a bit of an uncertain laugh.

“We shall see,” the first man said in reply. After a beat, Mac heard someone struggling. Hard.

"Hey—stop! What the fuck are you doing? Let me go! I'm serious! I never got a script for this scene! Let go! Ow!"

Mac felt his stomach lurch hard. He couldn't see what was happening, but he knew it couldn't be good, and whoever had been brought in there needed help. He was about to stand up, maybe throw a book up there to distract them, but at that moment, the door he'd come through burst open, and the man who'd attacked him at the generator came stalking in, looking around furiously.

He was trapped. He had no choice but to stay where he was, curled in a ball, holding his breath and praying he wouldn't be spotted. If he was noticed, he wasn't sure he'd survive another fight with the large man hurriedly searching between the shelves. And if he were killed, there would be no one left to save Riley.

There was nothing he could do to save the man above him.

By that time, that man was screaming, as if in pain, and Mac shook his head quickly. That was Murdoc talking. Of course he could do something. He could always do something. He just had to come up with a plan—fast.

Carefully, the blond man peered out from his hiding spot, finding his pursuer angrily stalking up and down the aisles formed by the shelves, seemingly undisturbed by the commotion above him. He was about five rows from the front of the room, where there were various tables and chairs set up—though many had been knocked over at some point.

"Hmm," the first man's voice above him sounded disappointed, maybe even annoyed, and Mac knew he was out of time to think. Keeping low in his crouch, Mac launched himself soundlessly from his hiding spot towards the front of the room, coming to a stop in front of the first shelf. "It looks like you've brought me another lamb."

His original attacker was working his way towards him, and was now four rows from the front. Mac waited until he was solidly in the aisle, then pushed the shelf in front of him with all his strength, keeping up the pressure as he felt the shelf begin to tip.

"At least it won't be a total waste," the first man above sighed. His victim's voice became frantic and punctuated with sobs.

"No! No, no, please, please just let me go! Let me go! Please!"

Finally, the shelf gave in and tipped completely, knocking over the next shelf and the next all down the row in a perfect domino effect. It was terribly loud, the metal clanging against each other and books falling to the floor. His pursuer was trapped between the shelves, and was knocked over with a loud shout.

"What the hell is going on down there?" The first voice from above demanded angrily, and to Mac's relief, he could still hear the near-victim's voice as well—he was still alive. The man above ordered someone to go check it out.

Mac spotted a stuffed otter on the floor by his original hiding place and almost absently picked it up as he consulted his map quickly, trying to figure out a way up to the chapel. There had to be a way; he could still save that guy, now that he'd bought a little time.

"Hey!" A deep voice shouted at him, making the agent jump and lift his head in time to see a man's face poking down through the hole to look at him. The man was backlit, so he couldn't make out any features, and Mac was about to ignore him when he started moving to drop down to join him. The Phoenix agent cursed under his breath, quickly swiping the screen on his arm to the right spot, and—

He'd just located a stairwell and was moving to run towards it when the panicked man's voice returned.

"NO WAIT PLEASE—!"

The cry was cut short, replaced with a stomach-churning gurgling sound. Mac felt his heart sink as the man above him paused in his attempted descent, standing up and moving out of sight. A second or two later, a fresh body dropped from above onto the pile, presumably the latest victim. The man tumbled down the pile until it was about halfway to the floor, where it came to a rest with his dead, unseeing eyes staring right at Mac. Even in the faint light, it was obvious that his throat had been deeply slit.

It was also obvious that he was dressed like a patient.

Mac knew he didn't have time to dwell, and convinced himself that he wasn't fleeing in terror as he turned and ran back the way he came, retracing his steps from the generator room. He slowed to a walk when he reached the main loop, and then stopped altogether for a moment to catch his breath and stop his hands from trembling.

There were actors.

Either that or the 'patient' was imagining he was an actor, but somehow that seemed less likely.

It meant that not everyone he came across was really out to get him, and there was no way to distinguish the real enemies from the actors.

It certainly complicated things.

When his heart wasn't pounding quite so hard against his ribcage, Mac continued on, still absently clutching the stuffed otter.

Along the way, since he heard no one pursuing him, he decided to open a couple other doors in the hallway, using his flashlight to get a better look. There were only two to speak of. The first one was another storage closet, containing packages of toilet paper, vacuums, mops, brooms—cleaning supplies, although there were no chemical cleaners to speak of. Wouldn’t want to make things too easy for him, of course.

The second door opened into what looked like a staff break room. Lots of tables and chairs, some microwaves, two fridges, and what looked like a nurse eviscerated on the left side of the room. What really caught his eye, though, was the toaster on the floor. It gleamed brightly when the flashlight beam passed over it, and after swinging the light around to make sure no one else was there, he ventured inside and picked up the dented appliance, wrapping the cord around it before packing both it and the otter into his backpack.

More convinced that his pursuer was once again contained—at least temporarily—Mac scanned the hallway before heading back towards the stairwell and the dark basement. After all, the cell control module was worthless if he didn't get the generator going. Mac considered ditching the backpack in the supply closet; if it was taken away he'd lose everything he'd collected so far, including the cell control module and the cable necessary to connect it.

But for all he knew Murdoc would instruct someone—an actor or otherwise—to grab it and make this fucked up situation even harder. He'd already wasted enough time. Riley was out there somewhere, and it was pretty clear Murdoc had made certain this facility had its share of real, violent patients to go with the hired help.

Besides, if the lunatic in the generator room had somehow escaped, that was one less enemy still down in the basement.

Mac picked his way down the stairs again, this time barely having to look to dodge the blood puddles. Just because he'd 'cleared the level' there was no guarantee that Murdoc hadn't let more opponents loose down there, and he braced himself, then pulled his SAK out of his pocket, flicked on the light, and hopped onto the sneaker before pushing open the door.

Same amount of steam. Same flickering emergency lights. He needed the alternator to get the genny going, so his first stop had to be Benny.

The code was still the same; no reason for it to have changed, after all, and once the doorknob turned, Mac knocked softly three times. "Benny? It's just me. The cable guy."

He received no reply.

Wedging his foot against the door as he opened it—to prevent the very large man from being able to slam it on his face—Mac eased into the room, right arm first, shining his SAK at the floor. He found the telephony racks, just as he'd left them, and once he was sure the area around the door was clear, he slipped into the room and shut the door firmly behind him. "...Benny?"

Nothing.

Belatedly Mac realized that Benny—if that was actually his real name—had never actually shared said name with him.

"I brought you something," he said quickly, not moving from his spot, and keeping his flashlight shining at the floor. "To—trap demons."

Finally, finally, he heard the whisper of fabric. The big guy was on the move, and it sounded like he was behind the rack of telephony equipment, dead ahead. Mac slid his backpack off as quickly as he could, knowing he only had seconds, and rather than try to pull the toaster out, he simply ripped the big pocket open and shined his flashlight down on the contents.

The light reflecting off the toaster was sufficient to show him a mountain of light blue fabric, hesitating only a few steps away. Mac carefully didn't move, offering the light-colored shadow a friendly smile he hoped was visible in the diffused light. Hoped looked reasonably sincere. "You said it had to be reflective but not a mirror, right?"

The large patient didn't make a sound, didn't move, and Mac plainly felt five heartbeats go by before he heard what sounded like a friendly scoff.

"...yeah," he agreed, and shuffled closer. "Yeah, that's right." A giant hand reached for the bag, and Mac held his breath and pulled it away.

"Hey, man. Like you said, nothing in this life is free."

There was very little room to maneuver; if this guy got his hands on Mac, he knew his odds of escape weren't great. However, this guy had been one of the 'patients' with a file, and Mac wasn't entirely certain he wasn't an actor. He didn't reek of body odor like some of the other patients Mac had stumbled across; even his breath wasn't bad. He was clearly well hydrated and fed and didn't appear injured. And except for the demon thing, he seemed to be acting pretty normally. Sitting apparently in the dark, just waiting in a room Mac needed to enter in order to further his 'objective.'

Like he'd been staged there.

Then again, Mac had no proof that the patient file he'd read upstairs  _ wasn't _ one hundred percent real, and Benny was indeed the violent maniac who had murdered his mother, and simply been convinced—or drugged—to stay in the room.

He was definitely playing the odds.

And his luck—this time—held out. The mountain of patient pajamas in front of him chuckled. "Okay, fair enough," he admitted. "Whaddaya want? Another cable?"

Mac hmmed aloud, as if he was thinking about it, and let the SAK's light flicker around the room until it fell on the desk again. The desk was in the corner behind the door, about twelve feet away, but the diffuse light still caught the alternator, right where he'd left it. "...what about that?"

Benny had clearly been following the light—exactly like Mac wanted—and he grunted out a laugh. "Nah, between that and your...izzat a toaster? I could set up a crossbeam, catch anything that came through that door." Benny instead shuffled  _ much  _ closer, looming over Mac and apparently oblivious of personal space as he thrust his face next to Mac's, peering down into the backpack. "What else you got in there?"

Hoping beyond hope that he had correctly remembered 'otter' in relation to 'Benny,' Mac let the big guy reach into the pack, pawing things around. For a second he figured Benny would also want the cell control module, but the man froze, hand still in the backpack, and then let loose with a high-pitched squeal.

Mac couldn't help himself; he flinched. Benny didn't notice. He made a grab for the entire backpack, and only the fact that one of the shoulder straps was physically tangled around Mac's wrist kept the larger man from simply taking the whole thing away.

He did get his prize, though—the plush otter was immediately crushed against the man's chest, and he made another high-pitched happy noise, clutching and cuddling the stuffed animal against him like an infant. "Omigod," he half cooed, half screamed. "You have an  _ otter _ !"

_ Well I did _ , Mac thought. Aloud he said, "...yeah. You, uh, you like otters too?"

"I  _ love  _ them!" the enormous man revealed, staring adoringly down at the stuffed animal in his arms like it truly was alive. "They're so perfect, they keep away merpeople  _ and  _ ghouls and they can glide right onto the astral plane like it was just another brook or stream."

And Mac found himself completely unable to tell if this man was an actor or a legitimate mental patient. He decided it wasn't pertinent. "Did you know they're one of the few non-primates that uses tools?" His friend Penny had gone through an otter phase, and Mac still remembered a few of the factoids he'd looked up to impress her. "They have favorite rocks that they tuck into their armpits for safekeeping. They'll keep the same rock through their entire lives."

Benny finally looked back up at Mac, his eyes seeming to be huge in the relative darkness of the room, and his grip on the toy never faltered. "Casper, you gimme this, you can have whatever you want."

Mac kept his impatience on a tight leash, heading unhurriedly to the desk, where he smoothly exchanged the alternator for the toaster. As he'd expected, the alternator looked to be in usable shape, he'd just need some 12-gauge wire, which he could salvage from the other generator, and those sheets for a new belt. Mac slipped it into his backpack, trying not to look eager to get out of the room. Whether Benny noticed or not was up in the air; he was cooing at the otter. "Your name is Seymour," he told it kindly, his voice wavering like he was close to tears. "You're going to be my very best friend."

Just as Mac was inching by the man and reaching out to put his hand on the doorknob, Benny sniffled loudly. "Hey. Casper."

It was the second time Benny used that name, and Mac steeled himself, then slowly turned and gave the man what he hoped was a politely confused look. The patient smiled down at him.

"Look...I'm sorry about the...you know." He gestured at his own face, and Mac tried very hard not to wonder if this was the man who had so violently killed the guy in the men's bathroom. "See you around?"

"...uh, yeah," Mac agreed, fumbling for the doorknob. "You should probably stay in here for a while, stay safe, right?"

"Yeah," Benny agreed, transferring his attention back to the toy in his arms, and it took everything Mac had not to bolt from the room.

The hallway was the same, no motion save billowing clouds of steam, and Mac took a deep breath of it, then hurried back toward the generator room. He stopped and snagged a sheet along the way, giving the blanket pile a wide berth just in case someone was still under it, and pre-emptively held his breath as he rushed through the room with the cleaners. He slipped into the generator room quickly, taking a few steps away from the door before he pointed his SAK at the far wall, where he'd left his unconscious attacker.

The bindings were in two separate piles, and Mac headed over and shifted one of the piles with the toe of his shoes. The edges were ragged, but had very clearly been sawed through with a tool.

Either he'd had something sharp in a pocket and Mac had missed it, or someone had deliberately cut the guy free.

It didn't matter. With any luck, he was still stuck in the bookshelves, and Mac popped his SAK back into his mouth and dove into the more damaged of the two generators. As he'd expected, the alternator in there was trash, but there was enough left of the cable harness to salvage, and some quick work with the serrated blade on his swiss army knife did the trick. He carried it over to the other generator and got started.

In a video game, it would have taken seconds. In reality, in that hot, dark room, with Mac jumping at every pop and creak, it took almost eight minutes. His right shoulder was aching fiercely by the time he pulled himself back out of the thing, and he shone his flashlight along the front of the beat-up chassis before he located and slapped the cracked primer button.

Whether or not the generator was actually providing power the building, the equipment in front of him was the real deal; the unit primed with a high-pitched groan before there was a low whir, and the makeshift sheet belt started to turn the motor. For a moment he thought it was going to crap out on him, but then the motor caught like it meant it, and the genny shook and rattled to life. The fluorescent ceiling lights flickered on, and Mac didn't stop for even a second to enjoy the win. He just threw the backpack over his shoulder and jogged to the door, easing his aching right arm into the other strap.

Just as his fingers brushed the doorknob, he heard a series of deep thunks. Magnetic locks kicking back in.

And sure enough, the doorknob didn't budge. And there was no panel on the wall, for him to input a code or wave a badge.

"Come on," he snapped. "No one would design a security system that locked someone  _ in  _ the generator room."

The phone on his wrist didn't respond, and Mac gave the door a frustrated kick before he had to accept the shitty video game logic, and look for another way out. There was the obvious door on the other side of the room, that he'd seen earlier, and his wrist vibrated.

_ Objective: Return to the security office _


	6. Exam 3, Part 3

_Objective: Return to the security office_

"No shit," he grumbled under his breath, and broke into a loping jog. Wonder of wonders, this doorknob turned, and Mac found himself in a mirror of the cleaning closet, except this one was empty of cleaning agents—or corpses. As soon as his phone screen cleared of the obvious new objective, Mac swiped over to the map, looking at the various paths. Much like the level above, there was a version of the same central loop in the basement, but there were also entrances to each of the four wings. Good to know, but Mac didn't want to get distracted—or worse trapped—in another section of the facility.

Power was back on. That meant he could get a visual on Riley, and better yet, see what that cell control module could do.

The primary basement lights were hardly better than their flickering emergency counterparts. When Mac stepped warily into the new hallway, the steam still made it hard to see more than fifteen yards in any direction. Mac counted on surprise, hurrying down the noticeably less bloody corridor towards a connector, and a chain link security gate loomed out of the mist.

Again, no panel to enter a code or use a badge. Mac rattled it—quietly—but it didn't budge. He could go back and get that mop, then break a leverage point into the drywall and pry it open—

Or he could just cut a hole.

Mac snatched up his SAK and selected the wire cutters, and the same game show buzzer from earlier screeched out of his wrist.

Once again the crafting icon was flashing, a red X superimposed on it. This time, however, neither of the options were greyed out. He could tap CANCEL or PASS.

Murdoc's instructions had been clear. He only got two passes, and even using a pass would still result in some kind of penalty. He was running out of time, this was the most direct path back to the security office and getting eyes on Riley. But the game wouldn't end once he found her; that was when it was probably going to really get started. If he only had two passes, was this obstacle worth one of them?

Mac hesitated, glancing between the phone and the chain link fence blocking his path, and the soundtrack in his ear shifted to something highly suspenseful.

What would the hero choose.

MacGyver gave the chain link one last glare, then tapped CANCEL and swiped back to the map. If he couldn't take this route, his next best option took him into the north wing. Not one of the violent offenders wings—though that probably didn't mean much now since the power outage had unlocked a lot of the doors—but he'd pop up relatively close to that central hub, and hopefully he was the only one running around with a security badge.

He memorized the route quickly, then tucked his SAK into his pocket and cautiously jogged back the way he came.

For the first time, the soundtrack was actually useful. It gave him the jumpscare timed with a door wrenching itself open as he passed it, but whoever was in the room wasn't as on point. Mac leapt away from the doorway and the moment he got the impression of the relative size of the two people inside the surprisingly well-lit room, he took off at a dead sprint.

Whether patients or actors, they weren't as fast out of the gate, and Mac established a good twenty yard lead. There was supposed to be a side corridor—there!—and Mac didn't slow, taking a hard right and using his left leg to bounce off the connector hallway wall. The steam was dissipating a little, showing him murky shapes throughout the narrower hall.

The square ones were laundry carts, and he snagged the second one as he passed it and dragged it into the middle of the hall behind him even as he heard shouting and feet sliding on tile as his pursuers also reached the connecting hall. He couldn't worry about them, because the next shadow to pop out of the mist was definitely a person, dead ahead.

Mac didn't even slow down. A body in motion tended to stay in motion, and actor or patient, Mac aimed his left shoulder at his opponent's left side and leveled the guy without shedding much inertia. He had another right turn coming up, and then he should reach the stairwell.

There was some confused shouting—almost howling—behind him and Mac ignored it, barely slowing as he found the alcove with the stairwell door. He crashed against the bar but it didn't give, and Mac couldn't help a grunt when his body collided with the clearly locked door. His lungs were burning from the sprint, and Mac tried to suck down a few deeper breaths, searching his pockets frantically for—

The security badge. Back pocket, not to be confused with the driver's license. Mac slapped the plastic against an aged card reader, and the red LED blinked to green. He shoved his way through the door and whipped around, shoving it closed as fast as the weight on top of the door would let him. His pursuers had been slowed by both the obstacles he'd left them; he was actually able to get up the first half of the stairs before he heard bodies hitting the door, same as he had, and angry hammering.

"Too slow," he muttered, and took the stairs two at a time up to the first floor.

This door was more like the kind he'd expect to find in a school, wooden with a tall, narrow glass window taking up about half of it. Mac could see immediately that he wasn't going through; furniture and junk had been piled against it, and even though it opened into the stairwell, Mac wasn't about to try to crawl over or shove it all out of the way. He headed immediately for the second floor, still trying to catch his breath.

Same style of door, same window, no pile of trash to move. Mac eyed as much of the hallway as he could with the door closed, keeping an ear tuned to the pounding on the basement door, which told him he'd at least stopped those guys. They'd been waiting in a lit room, they were probably actors, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

There was no sign of anyone, actor or otherwise, in the hallway in front of him, and Mac sucked down two more deep breaths, then waved his badge at the card reader, and eased open the door.

He'd left the steam behind in the basement; this air was cooler, smelling slightly of old urine. The patients had clearly taken advantage of the doors unlocking, with many clearly labeled patient rooms gaping open and empty. There were remains of a piece of wooden furniture—maybe a side table?—strewn around the halls, and a few bloody smears here and there, but even though Mac could see the entire length of the wing, there wasn't a soul around.

He held his breath a moment, listening intently, but the only sound was the soundtrack in his ear. Also eerily quiet and calm.

He'd left the steam behind in the basement; this air was cooler, smelling slightly of old urine. The patients had clearly taken advantage of the doors unlocking, with many clearly labeled patient rooms gaping open and empty. There were remains of a piece of wooden furniture—maybe a side table?—strewn around the halls, and a few bloody smears here and there, but even though Mac could see the entire length of the wing, there wasn't a soul around.

He held his breath a moment, listening intently, but the only sound was the soundtrack in his ear. Also eerily quiet and calm.

He held his breath a moment, listening intently, but the only sound was the soundtrack in his ear. Also eerily quiet and calm. It almost sounded like 'travel' music—the soundtrack that played with a character was merely moving from one area of the game world to another.

Mac didn't trust it for a second.

He crept into the hallway, well aware of the timer ticking away in his head, and briefly consulted the map again. Literally down the hallway to the big double doors, and he'd be right back in the central hub.

There was no way he could just walk down this hallway unmolested. There had to be a trap, or a 'patient' just waiting to attack him. There was no way it was just that easy.

Mac took a page from Jack's book, breaking into a slow lope with his shoulder against the left wall, glancing into the rooms across from him to clear them before peering into the doorframe right next to him, then moving to the next, then the next. Basically clearing every room in the hall, but from one side of the hallway and without a gun, so if he tripped a 'monster' his only options were going to be hand to hand or running.

Which was stupid; there had to be a good melee weapon in one of these rooms.

And it was easy to see which rooms were asking for investigation; one had all the bedclothes wadded up in a pile at the foot of a metal bedframe—and he had to remind himself this was one of the nonviolent wings, so he supposed it might make sense that honest to god metal bedframes would be in use—and it occurred to him, almost absently, like the otter; a bedframe was easy enough to take apart, and had plenty of good crowbar-length metal parts to help him get from point A to point B.

So Mac chose a room that wasn't 'obviously' marked. Door was cracked open, but the room seemed tidy inside, nothing indicating it was anything more than a set. He paused at the jamb but there was no sound of motion within, and the EOD in him couldn't help but follow the frame with his eye.

No visible traps.

Mac pushed the door gently, and it opened with a barely audible creak.

And nothing happened.

The floorplans were almost exactly those of a normal motel. Door opened into a narrow hall, bathroom door off to the right, then opened up into the room proper, with a bed and even complete with a little desk and a regular-sized window, though this window was barred. As he stepped into the small but neat room, it occurred to Mac that Murdoc hadn't said he couldn't _leave_ , and there was nothing stopping him from making a rope and climbing down outside to access other areas of the compound. He was visualizing the entire map in his head when he felt light pressure fold his denim jeans against his right shin.

Again, his EOD training kicked in. Mac threw himself backwards, back towards the hallway, and a battering ram made from a bedframe swung soundlessly out of the dark bathroom doorway and punched a hole in the opposite wall, precisely where his head had been less than a second ago.

Mac stumbled back another step before he regained his balance, staring wide-eyed at the homemade contraption, which had planted itself heavily in the wall and showed no signs of swinging free anytime soon. It had been weighted, too; parts of a bedframe had been placed strategically to give it the most inertia for the limited fulcrum. Once he was certain the trap was well and truly sprung, MacGyver dared to take a slightly deeper breath, quickly scanning the hallway again before warily approaching the trap.

It was tied with strips of bedding to the sprinkler head in the bathroom. The tripwire was plain white dental floss, nearly the same color as the tile floor. Upon closer inspection, Mac realized that sharpened wood had been attached to the area that had punctured the drywall.

Without question this boobytrap would have killed him. Instantly.

Cautiously Mac ducked under it, scanning the room and finding the bed beyond completely intact. The parts had come from another patient's room, and despite the fact that he'd clearly been _meant_ to think this was a safe room to explore, he didn't find anything useful inside it but the trap itself. It had been wrapped together with the mattress springs, too tightly to easily get anything off it, and he abandoned the idea of trying to scavenge a weapon and opted to keep going.

That turned out to be a mistake.

There were two patients in the hallway, waiting for him.

The first was a shorter, stout man with about three days' beard growth on his craggy face. His eyes were small and cold. Beside him was what looked like a walking scarecrow, with straight, flyaway blond hair sticking out in every direction and long, gangly limbs. He was younger, Mac put him in his mid twenties, and his patient pajamas were a little short on him. Neither were wearing shoes.

Both were sporting blood spatter, small droplets in discernable lines.

Mac tensed, one foot in the hallway, and the shorter, older man gave him a slow, sarcastic clap.

"Looks like we got us a live one." The voice, the cadence and drawl of it, were familiar. He'd heard this man speak before.

The other gave a quite whine of annoyance. "I swear that one usually works."

His companion looked up at him, his mouth twisting contemptuously. "On what, the walking dead?" Without any other apparent signal, both men started towards him, and Mac found himself backing up, hands raised placatingly.

"I don't want any trouble," he started, and the tall one gave him a cheeky smile.

"Well then stand still and let's get a good look atcha."

He had the entirety of the hall behind him, but he knew he was essentially cornered. There was the staircase, blocked at both exits, and there were patient rooms, but that was all. The hallway terminated in a cinderblock wall. He was going to have to deal with them, one way or another, so Mac flashed what he hoped was a sincere-looking smile at the tall one and sauntered to a stop. "You make that trap in there?" He nodded his chin back at the room, but neither man took their eyes off him.

"Maybe," the tall one drawled, as if he hadn't admitted to doing so only seconds before.

"It's good work," Mac complimented him, dropping his hands a little as if he was letting down his guard. "Where'd you get the floss?"

"Got a little somethin'-somethin' stuck in your teeth?" the shorter one bantered back, moving confidently forward as if he had nothing to fear. "Hope it's not lettuce, for your sake."

"Ooooh snap," the taller one crowed, leaping into the air with a skip with the same energy as a small child. "That'd make him a sheep!"

And then he realized where he'd heard that voice.

Mac tilted his head a little, keeping the faux friendly look on his face. The shorter one, at least, had been one of the voices up in the chapel. Talking about lambs and shepherds.

These were not actors.

Meaning he didn't need to pull his punches. Mac gave the taller one a modest shrug, using it to widen his stance a little and raise his hands, and then they were within striking distance.

He sucker punched the shorter one, dancing left to put the staggering man between himself and his taller opponent. The scarecrow looked legitimately surprised, but only for a moment; he leapt at Mac with a shout of—

Glee?

He was over-exuberant and his center of gravity was too high; Mac went low and let the man's attempted tackle sail overhead into the wall behind him. The shorter of the men charged him with a roar, and Mac was already too close to the ground to recover, so he caught the man's charge and rolled with it, sending the shorter man tumbling into the sprawled body of his partner. Neither was incapacitated, only tangled up in the other, and Mac slapped the flats of his hands on the tile floor, pulling himself up and sprinting for the double doors at the end. He had a fifteen yard lead, easy, and he moved to fish the security badge out of his pocket when the double doors opened, and two more patients hurried into the hall.

One was carrying a boning knife that had to have come from the kitchen. It was bloodied.

Mac put on the brakes, the soles of his shoes actually squeaking as he slid a few inches, and the newcomers stared at him in open surprise. Then the man with the knife shifted his grip, in a way Mac had seen many times before.

Had seen Jack shift a knife, many times before. Right before he used it.

The hallway was empty of anything useful for blocking a knife, so Mac whipped off the backpack before he realized what he was risking. Stop the attack, but maybe damage the contents. Including the cell control module.

"Joe, thought you cleared this wing," the man with the knife purred, knowing he had Mac's undivided attention as he weaved the sharp blade between his hands. "He's not a patient..."

Mac didn't need to turn to hear that Mutt and Jeff had gotten untangled and were on their way. "Hoo, man, your nose is bloody!" the scarecrow stage-whispered, sounding ecstatic about it, even as the man with the knife advanced, and Mac grudgingly gave ground.

Well, if mechanical and chemical engineering were out, there was always social engineering.

After giving the man with a knife another wary look, Mac carefully slipped the backpack over his left shoulder. "Listen, guys, I don't have time for this. We're all in danger—you wouldn't understand even if I tried to explain it, so just let me pass."

Knife Guy took an aggressive step forward, and Mac refused to react. After a tense few seconds, while Mutt and Jeff took up positions behind him, the guy next to Knife Guy broke out in a relieved grin.

"You think maybe...?" His tone was almost hopeful.

The cellphone strapped to Mac's forearm vibrated, and the two guys in front of him were close enough to actually hear it. They glanced curiously at his arm, and Mac smoothed away any frown and glanced surreptitiously at the screen.

_Objective: Go to the chapel._

Just what he needed. Another objective, and one taking him even further from that security room.

And Riley.

But of course the chapel had to contain some object or clue he'd need later in the 'game.' There'd be no reason to have put that giant hole in the floor if it was just meant to be background. And there was a chance he could talk them into letting him head there, maybe get them all in the room and find a way to incapacitate them.

How, he had no clue, but he was wasting time Riley didn't have. "Look, I'm headed to the chapel. You can come with, but we need to go _now_."

And without waiting for permission, he simply stepped around the man who _wasn't_ holding a knife. He kept a firm hold of the backpack, calculating the angle he'd use if the guy made a grab for it, but he didn't; instead, he stared at Mac almost adoringly, and while the guy with the knife was still scowling skeptically, no one stopped him when he grabbed the double doors.

And for whatever reason, these doors weren't locked. He was able to simply walk out of the wing, back into the main hub.

And for whatever reason, these doors weren't locked. He was able to simply walk out of the wing, back into the main hub.

The urge to try to ditch them and make a play for the security office was strong; that door was most certainly locked, he'd be safe while he got eyes and downloaded the feed on Riley. The downside was after. If they really were patients, they were as much a danger to her as they were to him. And the 'game' would most certainly not end when he got to her.

So Mac headed east—which was helpfully marked by the second floor signage—and found the chapel doors. They were wooden, but a deeper stain than the others, shaped like traditional abbey doors. The pulls were ornate but not ostentatiously so. They looked sticky.

Struggling not to change his expression in the slightest, Mac hooked two fingers around one and pulled. The door was heavily, and poorly oiled; it squealed an echoey announcement of their arrival into the larger space beyond.

"That was sooner than I..." The voice trailed off, and it took Mac a second to locate the speaker.

From below, the chapel hadn't appeared to be that spacious. Like many other hospitals build during the time, the chapel was important, but not as important as treatment space. This room was a bit more generous with space; there were two lines of pews with a wide center aisle, and the stained glass and altar at the end appeared to honestly face an exterior light source. There was another door on either side of the room, leading into each of the two wings it bridged—south and east. The hole, which would drop him into the library, took up two pews' worth of space, but left plenty of room to walk around and reach the altar itself. The edge was artificially made to look ragged, but as the proximity of his entourage forced him to enter the room, Mac could see that the exposed joists had been cleanly cut.

Towards the back of the room, seated in a chair near the altar, sat an unmoving figure in the clothes of a priest.

"...expected," the man finished, with the hint of a southern drawl. "Welcome, son. Mind your step."

Since he'd been the one to suggest they all enter, Mac accepted the invitation, choosing the longer of the two paths around the large hole. Nothing immediately useful leapt out. There was the three-tiered candelabra on the altar itself—with all its candles lit—and plenty of wood, old cushions, and bibles around. However, with the library below him, linked to two of the wings, a fire could get quickly out of hand.

Besides the wiry, greying priest, complete with collar and frock, there were a few freestanding floor lamps and another chair. There was also the naked, disemboweled body that had been dumped in the far corner of the room, which Mac could only assume had been the actual ordained priest. This time his stomach only flip-flopped half-heartedly, and he wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

All too soon he was drawing close to the priest. The man had to be in his late forties, but he rose smoothly from the seat without a trace of stiffness or discomfort, his face smoothed into serene welcome. "I've been waiting for you."

"That's odd. I wasn't expecting to be here," Mac told him honestly, casting a significant look over his shoulder to get a quick bead on the rest of the patients. Knife Guy was in the lead, which was no surprise, followed by the other three, all loosely grouped and clearly jockeying for position.

The pecking order wasn't fully established yet.

"You all need to come with me. None of you are safe here."

"You don't need to tell me that, son." The drawl was a little thicker, now, dry and amused. "The Day of Reckoning is upon us."

Wonderful. "Day of Reckoning or not, I need you to follow me, and gather as many of the...others as you can." If he thought he was a priest, there was no telling if he knew he—and the handful of other people in the room—were patients. "I'll take you someplace safe until this is over."

The man before him adopted a pious look, folding his hands in his stolen robes. They were large on his thin frame, allowing him to act the part of a monk along with a traditional Catholic father, and there was no telling what he'd concealed inside them. "There is no safe place," he corrected patiently, as if he'd already said the same a hundred times today. "Not until the focus is destroyed and the gates of our salvation are revealed."

Rather than continue trying to reason with crazy, Mac sidestepped the priest and surveyed the area around the altar, making note of everything he saw. If there was an objective in this room, it wasn't as obvious as the others, like the cell control module. What the hell did Murdoc expect him to do, agree to another 'quest'? He'd already wasted too much time negotiating with Benny.

"A great evil is among us—"

"You don't know how right you are," Mac agreed, almost absently, running his fingers beneath the edge of the altar and trying to ignore the fact it was still sticky from recently wiped blood. It had to be this, the centerpiece of this macabre display, but it was just a hunk of bloodied granite with a bloodstained silken sash and candelabra—

And on the base of the gilded thing, a photograph was propped. It wasn't posed, or at least it was made to look as if it was a candid shot. A candid shot of Riley, again in the too-revealing nurse outfit, apparently holding court while three completely captivated orderlies drooled over her.

"The focus," the priest confirmed, directly across from him, and Mac nearly flinched at the proximity. The guy's footsteps were absolutely silent on the thick pile carpeting, despite the sickly squish it had to it, telling of the total volume of fluid it had absorbed.

"Such an appealing package for so much darkness," the man purred, making no move to circle the altar. He didn't need to; his acolytes were spreading out on either side, trying to corner Mac. "I knew who the demon was immediately. Preying on the poor and helpless here, unable to protect themselves from its wiles."

His brain was unable to stop itself from rhyming 'wiles' with 'Riles' and Mac tore his eyes off the photograph to glare at the would-be priest. "She's not the evil I was referring to," he said curtly. "You have bigger problems." Hell, at this point they might believe him if he told them an obsessed assassin was toying with them. "Like how you ended up here in the first place."

Surprise flashed in the patient's eyes, but only for a second; it was replaced with a beatific but clearly calculated smile. "In purgatory, you mean. The power of the focus, no doubt. Her presence concentrates the demons here, but destroy the vessel and they will spiral into chaos. Their power will be undone," and this was directed more towards the other patients than Mac, almost like a reassurance. "And the gates to our salvation will be opened."

It was a trope Mac had little patience for in general; when directed at someone he cared about by a lunatic, it was completely unacceptable. Fortunately conspiracy theorists were simple to control—all you had to do was offer them something even more outlandish. "Yeah, that's not how this works," he contradicted flatly, focusing on the priest in front of him but raising his voice so the other patients milling ever closer could hear. "She's not the demon here—she's the misdirect. The demon is the one that told you I was coming." Without missing a beat, he waved his hand along the candelabra, plucking the longest candle and holding it up as if it was exactly what he'd been looking for. "You're right about the gates of salvation, though," he allowed, and gave the narrow-eyed priest a confident smirk. "I am here to vanquish a demon, and I _will_ lead you out of purgatory."

With any luck, straight into a paddywagon and back to the mental hospital from which they'd been collected.

It was enough for some of the patients, who outright cheered. But not the priest; he was not about to relinquish his newfound control over others. Though his smile was wide, it didn't touch his eyes.

"Our savior," he praised, making a pious if unrecognizable gesture before the altar. Then he paused theatrically, his head cocked to the side. "Though...if what you say is true, if the demon is in fact the one who foretold your arrival...then what does that make you?"

"That's just another misdirect," Mac dismissed, blowing out the candle and waving it in the air to speed the cooling of the hot wax. "They want us to doubt each other. If we work together we'll beat them and they know it." He stuffed the perfectly normal taper candle into an exterior pocket on the backpack, then shouldered it again. "I've got what we need from here. Follow me."

In truth, he had no clue what the objective in this room was supposed to be. The altar didn't open, and there was nothing he could see on the pews that would be useful. Since these patients had an actual photograph of Riley, and clearly intended to add her body to the pile in the library, maybe the objective was simply to neutralize them.

And even if that wasn't the objective, Mac was going to do it anyway.

A quick glance at the inside of his forearm revealed no additional information—nor any flashing X's over the crafting icon—and Mac started purposefully towards the wooden abbey doors. He was going to have to bluff his way past the priest and through three men—including Knife Guy—so he made eye contact with each of them, acknowledging them with a nod and projecting nothing but confidence.

And for a split second, it worked.

As he passed the priest, however, the man reached out and wrapped a surprisingly iron-like hand around his right bicep, and Mac couldn't help a reflexive twist, yanking himself away. The priest then held up his hands in a universal gesture of peace and de-escalation, but his eyes were sharp. "We want to believe in you, but this...is not a matter that can be left up to chance."

"You think this is chance?" Mac shot back, letting his fully real impatience bleed through. "You wake up in this place without knowing how you came to be here. You're told she's a vessel of great evil—but by who? And that same person announces that I will arrive to save you. Who was that person? Where are they now? We're all locked in this facility. If that person wasn't the demon, then where the hell are they?"

It was too much to hope that these men might actually know where Murdoc was orchestrating and running this entire thing from, but since they'd been scouring it and bringing anyone they found to this room, maybe he could get the kind of clue Murdoc didn't want them to pass along.

But instead of trying to reason his way out of the logic trap, the priest merely gestured—to the hole in the chapel floor.

His meaning was crystal clear.

"He too was tested. He may have been acting on the behest of the vessel, but he was no demon," the priest assured the room.

Mac didn't believe for a second that Murdoc might have actually been killed in his own scenario, and he didn't even look towards the pile of bodies. It must have been an actor, then, who'd passed on the photograph. Another life senselessly lost.

Mac tried logic one more time. "But why would you believe them? Why do you think the demon would send someone to tell you who to kill? Or for that matter, allow anyone to tell you who the real focus was?" He waved an impatient arm, gesturing at the chapel. "I don't know if you noticed, but the odds are not in our favor. The demons aren't here to help us. They're here to hinder us. I know who's behind this, and I promise you, I will deal with him. But right now all we're doing is wasting time."

"If that man wasn't telling us the truth about the focus, then he wasn't telling us the truth about you," the priest pointed out, almost mildly. "It's a simple test. Why do you fear it so?"

A simple test. Like the whole stupid 'exam.'

"Yes—the holy flame will not burn him!" one of the patients chirped, and was jostled by the man beside him.

Great.

Mac thought about that for a split second, and then he gave them an irritated shrug. "Fine." He slipped the backpack off, reaching into the exterior pocket for the candle he'd stolen. The top of it was still pliable, near the wick, and as he turned in annoyance to light it from the candelabra, he passed the body of the candle through his right hand, smearing a small amount of half-hardened wax across his palm.

Once the wick caught, Mac turned back to his audience. He faced the smirking priest, and without the slightest hesitation he laid his right palm directly over the wick of the candle. He held it there for a two count, then waved his palm through the candle, so close that his skin was touching the wick. Then Mac drew his hand back and displayed his palm.

It was a little red, and a lot warm, but it wasn't burned.

The men in front of him gasped, and Mac couldn't help a little smirk of his own when the priest's smile drooped in dismay.

The reason a person could pass their finger through a candle without getting burned was mostly due to convection; heat rises. The flame of a candle also isn't particularly hot. As the flame burns, it gathers cold air from around the base of the wick and sends it upwards as it gathers heat. At the top of a candle, the air temperature is almost six hundred degrees fahrenheit.

But at the base, near the wick, the blue flame was much cooler. The thin layer of wax he'd put on his palm—and a little nervous sweat—gave him just enough additional protection to pull off what otherwise looked impossible.

It was undoubtedly how the 'priest' had faked not getting burned, and may have been how he'd protected his 'followers', by directing their fingers or hands closer to the wick, but he couldn't call MacGyver out without giving away his own trick.

And he knew it. The priest's face twisted up into a barely disguised snarl, though his voice was smooth. "The holy flame did not burn his flesh. He is a true believer," he decreed, and then made the same weird gesture at the altar. The other patients clumsily followed suit.

Mac simply blew out the candle—for the second time—and gestured towards the back of the chapel with it. "Let's go."

And there was no protest the priest could make to stop him.

Once the gathered patients meekly began following him, Mac glanced at his forearm again, tapping the map icon. For whatever reason Murdoc had allowed the little improvisation, and the map of the second floor showed that the chapel area was a link between two wings. If he was going to lock these men in a room, he wanted it to be a room that was designed to keep them in.

Meaning a normal patient room. With the power back on, certain locks were once again working by default. Once he got the cell control module—still safe in his backpack—installed and working, he could lock down entire wings. Then again, there was no guarantee Murdoc wouldn't override anything he did. So wherever he tucked these patients away, he couldn't count on the magnetic locks alone.

But at the head of each wing, where it connected back to the central hub, there was a block of rooms that were larger, and had no exterior windows. Their design seemed more secure, and they were isolated from the other patient rooms. And since these guys had been boobytrapping the east wing, he turned to the south.

A few mutters started floating back to him, even as the soundtrack in his earwig started to grow more suspenseful.

"—he is the shepherd, he really is—"

"—the high priest is right, though, if a demon foretold his coming...?"

"But he must wield the Key!"

The last whisper attracted his attention, and Mac cleared his throat and turned his head a little. "What's this about a Key?"

The priest, who had reluctantly taken the position directly behind Mac, gave him a dark look and didn't answer. After a few seconds of silence, however, his flock couldn't keep it to themselves. "The Key unlocks the gates of our salvation!"

Apparently not a metaphorical gate. That was good to know. Mac again focused on the patient-turned-priest, who gave him a steely-eyed glare. "...and the Key is with the high priest, I presume?"

The man's eyes narrowed further. "As it is ordained," he confirmed in a tone that brooked no argument.

Mac felt the phone on his forearm vibrate, but this time he didn't even look. That was the objective of the chapel room.

The actual priest had been a larger man than the patient who had killed him, and as a result the priest robes were generous, giving him all manner of places to stash a key. He was clearly much stronger than he looked, and getting into a fistfight with him was not likely to impress his small collection of adoring believers.

"I'm gonna need that key to open the gates," he reminded the man as they entered the south wing—with the door also conveniently unlocked—and Mac made a mental note to correct that once he was able.

"When the times comes," the priest said piously. He then shot Mac a highly suspicious look as he held open a door to what appeared to be an abandoned patient room. "Why have you led us here?"

"I told you. I need you somewhere safe," Mac repeated, mimicking the patient's tone. "This room is fortified against detection. If the demon comes searching for you, it won't find you here."

"—but the chapel was safe," one of the priest's flock protested. "The holy flame protects us."

An idea finally popped into his head, and Mac nodded to the man. "Exactly right," he agreed, and then he held up the candle that was still in his left hand. The mentally ill man grinned brightly at him, and then surprised Mac by snatching it from him.

"That's why you took it!" he exclaimed happily, and held it up to show the others. "To protect us!"

The patient room was largely tile and concrete, and the bed, as long as it was following code, was flame retardant. Giving mental patients a candle was probably a bad idea, but they'd had the whole candelabra all this time and managed not to set the building on fire, and frankly there were so many other ways they could endanger themselves and others—since at least one of them had a knife from the kitchen—a candle seemed relatively minor on the risk index.

The only problem was lighting it. Mac reached into his pocket for his swiss army knife, looking for anything metal that could provide some sparks, when he heard the sharp grind of metal on metal.

The patient that had taken the candle from him was holding a bright yellow Bic lighter to the wick.

Of course. That was how they'd gotten the other candles lit.

"Can I borrow that?" Mac asked casually, and after the candle was lit the man agreeably passed it to him, his eyes never leaving the wick. As soon as he'd handed Mac the lighter, his empty hand went to cup around the flame, his entire being focused on it.

"Everyone, stay with him. I'll be back before the candle burns down."

Though a few of the patients were highly skeptical, the others hurried into the space, leaving the bed as a place of prestige for their high priest. He was the last to go inside, giving Mac a piercing look. "I don't know what this is," he snarled under his breath, "but I will skin you alive if you betray us."

Unwanted, the mental image of the pile of corpses stacked in the library came to his mind's eye, and Mac jerked his chin at the room. "And if you fail to keep these men safe, I will ensure that you spend the rest of your life in a purgatory far worse than this."

The priest gave a little huff, but turned to walk fully into the room. Before he could make it more than a step or two, Mac reached out and grabbed his arm, releasing him as soon as he turned back although his expression remained stony.

"I'm gonna need that key," he stated quietly. The other patients in the room were talking amongst themselves in hushed tones, watching them intently. The priest glared at him.

"As I said," he replied icily, "when the time comes."

Mac blinked at him, then took a small step closer to him. When he spoke, his expression remained calm, but his voice, while barely above a whisper, was venomous.

"Either you give me that key, or you'll be the next sacrifice. And before you say that your followers won't let that happen, I think we both know that in their eyes, I outrank you."

The priest stared at him for a second, eyes sparking with rage, before he cast a quick glance at the other patients. Yes, knife guy was still a bit apprehensive about the newcomer, but the majority were in awe, fully believing that Mac was there to save them. Knife guy was armed, but Mac had the numbers. And the priest knew it.

With one last glare, the priest finally plucked a chain out from around his neck, revealing a silver key, and handed it over. Mac took it with a smile.

"Thank you," he said, hoping he sounded sincere. "Now stay put. I'll be back soon."

As soon as the priest started stiffly to take his seat on the bed, Mac closed the door, listening for the magnetic lock to catch. It did, but that wasn't good enough for Mac. His eyes roamed the somewhat trashed hallway for anything useful, and then he jogged a few dozen yards and picked through the detritus of a supply cart before he found some spare patient gowns.

These too got cut into strips with his SAK, and he used them to lash the door lever to the room beside it. Even if Murdoc messed with the locks, at least there was a second, physical impediment. The phone vibrated on his forearm, and Mac glared at it with irritation.

The only thing on the screen was a winking smiley emoji.

Mac yanked his boat knots as tight as he could, then he broke into a sprint for the main hub, at this point if anything else leapt out at him the plan was to outrun it.

If any of the other patients had been given photos of Riley, or otherwise primed to want to do her harm—

Maybe it was a 'reward' for whatever he'd done to please Murdoc, but when he waved the security badge and entered the central hub, already on the second floor, it looked exactly the way he'd left it. Same bodies, same blood puddles, and no one else in sight.

He didn't relax, even after he badged himself into the security office to find that the monitors were once again working. Even as he slipped off the backpack, unzipping it to grab the cell control module, his eyes were on the monitor low on the camera bank, currently showing him—

The screen switched, and there was Riley. Still attached to her gurney. Still pristinely white in her costume. Mac watched the feed closely, trying to make out whether she was breathing, she was awake, but the fifteen second cycle moved on before he could be sure of it.

"Hang in there, Riles," he muttered softly, and only realized it was out loud when the music in his ear switched from suspenseful to sappy sweet. It made his next decision much easier.

There was no doubt in his mind that plugging in the cell control module was going to kick off another challenge or obstacle. Before he installed it, he needed to get that feed of her on his phone.

The mini USB cable connected beneath the monitor without issue, and once the feed had switched back to her, Mac quickly plugged in the phone.

Once again, the phone's screen lit up with a notification.

**Sync Feed?**

Mac impatiently tapped OK.

And as before, the activity bar appeared and filled rapidly. Unlike last time, the lights didn't go out. Instead, the phone vibrated on his forearm.

**Sync Complete**

When the notification disappeared back to his home screen, he noticed a new icon, a tiny little camera. When he tapped it, the phone switched to a full-screen view of the room Riley was in. Mac glanced between it and the full-sized monitor, and when the fifteen second cycle was up—the main monitor switched to the other view, but his phone stayed fixed on Riley's feed.

Even though it didn't actually bring him any closer to getting her out of that gurney, he finally felt a little rush of relief. "Gotcha," he told her, and immediately started on the cell control module.

It fit perfectly into the slot on the board, as he'd known it would, and Mac made short work of reaching blindly into it to find the other end of the torn-off cable. It was plugged into a series of network jacks, hidden behind the cabinet, but they were all filled, so it would be easy to find the empty one. He unplugged it and tossed it over his shoulder, already reaching for the cable he'd purchased from Benny. It was only when he was already plugging it back in that he realized the problem.

The new cable was about six inches shorter than the one that had been cut. It wasn't long enough to reach.

Mac couldn't help the curse that left his lips, glancing desperately around the room. The cabinet that housed all the control modules and monitors was screwed into the floor, so he couldn't move it. Nor could he disassemble the cabinet to move things around, he'd just have the same problem. Not to mention he couldn't just start unplugging things if he expected the cell control module to work like designed.

"You gotta be kidding me," he growled impatiently, staring at the cable in his hands. Of course, he could find something shiny to trade with Benny, go back down to the basement – and all the patients in there, including the ones he'd pissed off when he'd stopped them from following him earlier.

Too much time, too much risk.

Mac shoved his arm back into the slot, following the second, intact cable down to its network port. It was closer than the other one, _and_ a longer cable to boot, maybe if he swapped it with the one he'd gotten from Benny...?

He unplugged it and pulled it out of the hole, then connected it to cell control module, and a game show buzzer blared through the room, startling him enough that he banged his still sore right arm into the console.

The crafting icon was flashing, with a red X superimposed over it. He had the same two options, CANCEL or PASS, and this time the Pass button wasn't greyed out.

Murdoc knew what he was up to. He wanted to force him to go back into the basement. Burn more time Riley didn't have.

And he was done. Done with endless side quests, done with lunatics, done with being chased. He didn't care what kind of game Murdoc wanted him to play. He needed to get to Riley, and get them out of this hellish facility. Taking a deep breath and bracing himself for the 'penalty', Mac tapped PASS.

He expected some kind of shock from the phone, but the PASS button flashed twice, then his home screen reappeared. There was no indication that anything had happened, and after waiting a few more tense seconds, Mac moved to continue swapping the cables.

A scream ripped through his earwig. Female.

Riley.

Mac shot to his feet, his eyes flying up to the big monitor rather than the phone just as the feed switched back to Riley. She was writhing on the gurney, and the scream in his ear choked off in perfect sync with Riley forcing her jaw closed. Her eyes were screwed shut, her back, arms, and legs unnaturally arched, and Mac realized what was happening.

The electroshock equipment strapped to her had been activated.

"No—NO!" he shouted, knowing Murdoc could hear him, was watching. "Stop! I'll find another way! _Stop_!"

It didn't. The 'treatment' lasted about fifteen seconds, just enough time for the monitor to switch to the other feed, and Mac forced his fingers to uncurl from their tight fist, forced them to tap the correct icon, popping up her feed on his phone. She was sagging against the mattress, her cries now more like stifled sobs, and a thin line of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth to the pillow.

Mac clenched his jaw in tandem with her, unwilling to look away until he saw her take at least one deep breath. "You son of a bitch," he managed, then swallowed hard.

That was the penalty for using a pass.

The phone didn't display anything else, innocently showing him nothing more than the feed and his normal icons, and patients didn't suddenly appear on Riley's feed, drawn to the noise, but it was still several moments before he could bring himself to continue working.

Otherwise he'd put her through that for nothing.

The soundtrack in his ear was now a tragic version of the sappy love theme, it didn't register that it was anything more than noise until he realized that beneath the music, someone cleared their throat.

"Mac?"

He froze, arm still deep in the cabinet. "...Riley?"

And for whatever reason, Murdoc took pity on him, and lowered the music volume. Low enough that he could hear her painful exhale as she shifted on the gurney. Hear the fabric sliding against the vinyl mattress. He'd never toggled off her feed, but he twisted his left arm around, and saw her blink, saw her eyebrows bunch as she scanned the room. Her eyes passed right over the camera without pausing, so Mac assumed it was well camouflaged. "I can'ear you, but I can'find th'speaker."

"I have eyes, too. Your eleven o'clock." He couldn't keep the relief from his voice. "I'm in the building, I'll be there soon." He saw Riley's eyes look back at the camera, then forced himself to focus, and redoubled his efforts to get the cell control module up.

"Took you...a minnid." Her voice was a little slurred, and he wondered if she was drugged, still woozy from the shock, or it was the result of biting her tongue. Maybe all three.

He unclenched his jaw with effort. "I know. I'm sorry." The sappy music started up again, even as Mac managed to connect the shorter cable, grateful to find that it was _indeed_ just barely long enough, and he wasn't going to have to make the trip to the basement after all.

"Issa video game," she said suddenly, and he connected the power cord and carefully slid the cell control module into place.

"Yeah, I figured that part out." Murdoc hadn't given them audio as a reward; it was very clearly so that he could hear it every time she was hurt. The sociopath could and would take it away at any moment. "I'm working my way to you. Just got control of the cell locks, but it probably means something else will get triggered."

He glanced at the board, in time to see the big monitor had flipped back to her, and Riley was trying to take deep breaths. Her eyes blinked open a few times. "Issat...what jus'appened?"

A series of new LEDs popped up on the panel below the monitors, that had previously looked completely blank, and Mac took his own steadying breath. "No," he admitted, then purposefully strengthened his voice. "That was me. I made a mistake."

Of course the penalty was going to fall on Riley. He'd been a complete idiot to think otherwise.

He heard Riley cough, once. "Jus'eard a...a thud."

"What kind of thud?" he asked quickly, scanning the new array of LEDs. It didn't seem complicated; the design looked generally like the layout of the facility. One central hub, with four lines of LEDs stacked on top of each other, but clearly meant to represent the four wings of the hospital. They seemed to have three settings: green, amber, and red.

However, there were no buttons on the LED panel. Mac glanced down at the keyboard, which was sitting next to the stale cup of coffee, still with something grey-ish white floating in it.

"Like someone slam'd'door."

"How close?" Mac pulled the keyboard toward himself, unwilling to take the one empty seat that someone had bled on.

"...nod'close."

Not that it didn't mean they weren't on their way to her. He had to figure out how to lock these doors, and fast.

Mac focused back on the monitors. They had a two letter, two number designation in the corner of each monitor, and it was pretty clear he was going to have to figure out what it meant – and where they were—so he could type those into the keyboard and start intelligently locking down the facility.

And yet...

EC-04. It was a large room, with tables spread out in rows, though some had been upended. It actually looked exactly like the cafeteria he'd sprinted through after temporarily locking Generator Guy in the kitchen. So EC could be...east cafeteria?

SP-07 seemed to be an empty patient's cell. South wing patient room?

But a quick run-down of the displayed codes showed him more than N, E, S, and W. There was also a CH, but that was easy to determine—it was the chapel, and the view artfully hid the hole leading into the library and its pile of dead. There was a GY-05 as well, and that was the monitor that showed the patient still roaming the gymnasium, looking every bit as incensed as he had an hour ago. BT-06 was just a black screen, so wherever it was pointing had no lights – probably basement.

Riley's monitor was labeled ET-08. East something, camera or room 8. Maybe treatment room, since it looked more like a normal hospital room than the patient cells?

So she was east wing. That meant he could safely lock down all the other wings.

Mac pulled up the map on his phone, remembering well that it was one of the violent patient wings, and had been designed with physical security in mind. The first floor was not a single, wide hallway like the second floor had been. Beyond the cafeteria and gymnasium, there were several offshoots from the main hall that housed scores of smaller rooms. They weren't numbered, just like the rooms in the basement hadn't been, and there were several smaller hallways with at least eight rooms.

Though he had the map up, his audio to Riley hadn't been cut yet, and he heard her swallow. "I c'n'ear voices."

His eyes instantly shot back to the cameras, and he searched for any others that started with E. "How do you feel? Are you drugged, any injuries I don't know about?"

He was truly surprised when Murdoc didn't cut the audio right there, and actually let her answer. "Can'tell. Feel...sluggith. Heavy. Bit muh tongue."

Mac finally found a camera with a EH-01 label. It was a hallway, and he didn't see any motion. "Any trouble breathing?" Heavy reminded him uneasily of the paralytic Murdoc had given him back in the warehouse, but sluggish—

Sluggish sounded more like whatever sedative cocktail Murdoc had used the day he kidnapped him to kick off their apprehension of Henry Fletcher for Murdoc's collective. And this was supposed to be as much a 'message' to them as it was to Phoenix. As it was to Mac himself.

He heard fabric shift as she shook her head. "Throat's a li'l tight," she admitted after a second, and he watched her test her bonds with no discernable success. "Whoever's oud there, they're yellin'."

While the mic seemed primed to pick up even the smallest sound from Riley, he couldn't hear the background noise from her room—the piped in music might be covering it. Potentially on purpose. "Okay, Riley, I have a keyboard here and four character designators for cells. No computer screen. How do I use this?"

The Riley on the big monitor stared at the ceiling a moment. "Uh," she offered unhelpfully, and he frowned, trying to determine exactly how affected she might be. "If issa real system it won'be combligaded. Look for'manual."

A little slurring aside, that was a good idea, and Mac quickly recovered the operations manual off the floor. She was right; this ought to be straightforward. It wasn't like security guards were known for their personal computer skills.

Then again, it was supposed to be a video game, and beyond that an exam Murdoc meant him to fail. And since the two letter two number designation seemed simple enough, there had to be a catch.

But as he scanned the laminated pages of the manual, he couldn't find that catch. It was pretty basic. Just to test it, he slid the keyboard over, then used the 'lock all' command on the north wing.

**/lock all N*.***

And though he heard nothing, nearly every LED indicator along one of the four rows turned green. A quick glance at the security monitors showed him at least one visible confirmation; a doorway in view of the camera labeled NH-02 now showed a red LED on the badge reader beside it, meaning it was secured.

But not every LED on the panel turned green. Those that hadn't flipped displayed red, which Mac could assume meant the doors were unable, for one reason or another, to lock.

There was nothing he could about that from the security office, so Mac made quick work of battening down the South and West wings as well, proving by process of elimination which line of LEDs represented the East wing. It was a veritable Christmas tree of green, amber and red, and there was no way to know which LED lined up with which doorway or lock in the wing.

Suspecting that his security badge would give him access to most of those locks—and the three sets of keys he had in his pocket the rest—Mac made a quick decision. "Riley, I'm going to lock down your wing. Tell me if you hear anything."

**/lock all E*.***

Many of the LEDs flipped from amber to green, but several of the red LEDs remained. The music in his ear switched to an urgent beat, with low undertones that were designed to promote unease, and there on the feed on his phone, Riley picked up her head.

"I—I heard 'em," she confirmed, her lips drawing down in a scowl, and again, he heard her swallow. "Mac, iz'omethin' aroun'muh neck?"

The phone wouldn't let him pinch the image bigger, so Mac waited impatiently for the larger monitor to switch back to Riley's feed. The video was larger but the resolution wasn't as fine, and he really couldn't tell.

"Can you tilt your chin up?" he asked, and once Riley complied, he saw that she was correct. There was a black choker on her neck, the only thing that didn't look like part of the nursing costume. In fact, it looked a lot like all her other chokers. For all he knew, it actually _was_ one of Riley's own chokers. Murdoc had spent more than enough time in her apartment to snag one, and putting it on her now would only be a reminder of that violation.

This wasn't just designed to make Mac lose, to fail to save a life. It was designed to scare the victim to death. Riley was every bit the target that he was.

Mac chose his words carefully. "Looks like you're wearing a black choker. Is it too tight?" Limiting the blood flow through her carotid and jugular could account for the wooziness, but if that was the case, blood was being choked off from her brain and had been since he'd gotten eyes on her. Which was almost an hour ago—

She swallowed again, loudly enough that he could hear it even over the suspenseful music. "Nah, iz'jus...I c'n'def feel it."

"Okay. Hang on, Riles," and he tried to make it sound more confident than he felt. "I'm headed to you, I don't know if we'll lose audio when I leave here. I'm coming."

Right before the larger monitor flipped back to the other feed, he saw Riley squeeze her eyes shut. "Hurry," was all she said.

Unfortunately that was easier said than done.

The music was an audio cue that he'd triggered something, and since the monitors didn't show him every camera, just because he didn't see people racing down hallways didn't mean they weren't out there. As soon as he put his ear to the security room door, he heard the slap of patient shoes on the tile outside.

His two buddies from earlier had apparently come back out again. And since he had no idea what the designation for the central hub was, if it wasn't 'CH,' he had no idea what command to input to lock down the middle.

Fortunately he already knew exactly how to get to the east wing from here, so he simply waited for the footsteps to head away from him, then he eased open the door to find the coast appeared clear.

He hadn't forgotten about the east stairwell door on the first floor being blocked, so Mac knew he was going to have to back down to the main floor first, and he was almost certain that something would be waiting for him. Still, as he crept down the stairwell, he didn't hear anything but the soundtrack. This time he was expecting the violins, timed with when he put a wary hand on the door lever, and it didn't make him jump quite so much.

There was no movement visible through the window, and the lever didn't shock him, so Mac took a deep breath, depressed the lever, and pushed it open.

It wasn't open more than an inch before there was another explosion of sound—metal and coins slamming into the ground and scattering every which way, followed by what sounded like an economy size coffee tin rolling jauntily across the spreading mess. It was a simple boobytrap, the kind he and Boze had set up a million times in school when Mac wanted prior warning before a teacher appeared. Just a noisemaker.

A noisemaker that a human had put there sometime in the past hour.

There was no benefit to sneaking, not now, and Mac launched himself through the doorway and straight for the east side of the main lobby.

Even as his body cleared the doorway he saw that he'd been right. Someone was waiting for him.

Three of them.

Two had been leaning casually on a desk, and they looked almost as startled as he did. The third was between him and the east wing entrance, dressed like a patient, and the guy planted his feet and threw Mac a smirk. Actors, he guessed, but they were probably instructed to make it as hard for him as possible, to make the 'scene' look 'real,' and even if they weren't going to kill him, they were still an obstacle between him and Riley.

Mac didn't even hesitate. He ran straight at the guy and made it look for all the world like he was going to put a shoulder into the guy's stomach. When his opponent hunkered down and tensed up, Mac spun to the right like a quarterback, barely breaking stride and pushing off his opponent with his hip to throw him off balance. He made it to the door with a multiple yard lead and waved his badge at the door. A click and then he pulled open the door only as far as he needed to to get in before yanking it shut behind him.

As soon as it closed the magnetic lock re-engaged, and Mac used the badge to salute the surprised-looking man before he focused on whatever threats were waiting for him in the East wing.

The first one was big. Much bigger. From the stairwell window, it hadn't been apparent, but it wasn't just the side stairwell door that was blocked.

It was the entire hallway. Floor to ceiling, crammed with possibly every stick of furniture in the wing. He picked out the bent frames of beds, chairs, sheets, desks—and the ceiling wasn't a drop ceiling, so it wasn't like he could just hop up into the utility space and go over.

"Crap," he muttered, walking up to the enormous barricade and grabbing a few pieces to get a measure for how tightly it was packed. He could tear it apart, but it would take time. More than he wanted to spend, and he couldn't see daylight out the other side. Suppressing a curse, Mac flipped over his wrist and pulled up the map on his phone.

"...wuz'rong?"

For a split second he completely forgot that it wasn't a mission, and she wasn't perfectly fine sitting in the War Room, talking to him through his earpiece. "Uh—roadblock. Literally. Think Les Mis. I need to route around it and find..." He trailed off, scanning the map. He could backtrack, take out the three actors, head up the North wing and use a cut-over—

"Look for'a crawl through."

He couldn't help an impatient huff. "It's floor to ceiling, Riles, there's no—there's no crawl through—" though he did crouch low, checking, because she was right, that was a standard video game trope.

"Check th'side room. Closet."

"Yeah—yeah," he agreed quickly, taking them both in. Much like the story above it, there were rooms near the door to the central hub, probably holding cells for anyone who needed to be transferred out of the wing to another for treatment or visitors. The one on his right was locked, and Mac fumbled in his pocket for the multiple sets of keys. Neither the janitor's keys nor Suit Guy's keys fit, and there was no way this door fit the 'gates of our salvation' description.

But the other doorknob opened easily in his hand, revealing a perfectly normal patient room.


	7. Exam 3, Part 4

But the other doorknob opened easily in his hand, revealing a perfectly normal patient room.

Mac took two strides into the room, scanning the tops of the walls where they joined the ceiling. There was a vent up there, but it was quite small. Far too small to crawl through. Still, there  _ had  _ to be a way around, and Mac gave the barred window a hard stare before he grabbed the foot of the narrow twin-sized bed and yanked it off the wall.

Bingo. Second vent on the floor. Just big enough for a full-sized man to crawl through, if he was skinny enough.

The thought crossed his mind that Murdoc had probably measured it to fit. To  _ just  _ fit.

"Got a vent," he told her, again completely on reflex, dropping to his knees and evaluating the grate before breaking out the SAK and selecting the flat head screwdriver. "It's gonna be a tight squeeze."

There was a sound, halfway between a scoff and a cough. "Check fer'ats."

There was a definite odor of urine, under the must and dust, but Mac was going to put money on it having come from a human bladder, not a  _ Rattus norvegicus _ . He managed to get the grate off without getting buzzered by Murdoc, and he tucked it aside hastily and swapped from the bit to the flashlight. There was dust and other—less savory things coating the floor of the vent, and what looked like cobwebs but he knew had to be the cotton variety. "Well, he didn't skimp on atmosphere," Mac murmured, shining the light around and noticing there was a 90 degree turn, about eight feet in.

"Why star'now," Riley asked rhetorically, sarcasm heavy in her voice. "You know something'll be in there."

Given the continued suspenseful music in his ear, Mac didn't disagree. But it did make him wonder. "Can you hear the music?”

"Y'mean the 'Best'ov Outlas'?" Riley let out a quiet snort. "Yeah, but I think iss'bein' pumped in separate fr'm'you."

That was something Mac hadn't factored in. Real mental patients being subjected to unsettling music, complete with occasional jump-scares. Something to really wind them up. "Any other noises on your side?"

"Nuthin'new." He knew she was trying to be calm, but he could hear the strain in her voice, and Mac quickly slipped off his backpack—no point getting it hung up on an errant screw or deliberately bent vent cover—and pushed it experimentally into the space.

When nothing happened—and he had no idea what he was expecting—Mac took a quick breath and ducked his head into the vent.

There was a scant inch in all directions, forcing him into a modified and highly compact army crawl, and Mac quickly found the easiest thing to do was place his hands flat along the walls and push himself up and forward with his toes. It allowed him to slide more than crawl, and also allowed him to wriggle just enough to see that his 90 degree turn was followed in two feet by another 90 degrees, that put him back in a generally easterly direction. He got his first surprise—there were other grates, large enough to crawl through, letting in both air and light. They undoubtedly led to patient rooms that he'd have to break out of as soon as he bellycrawled past the barricade.

However deep into the hallway it was.

Mac sucked in dust and God only knew what else with his next breath and that, coupled with the tickle in his lungs that had been growing for some time, led him to an explosive coughing fit, ending with a choke. When he blinked the water out of his eyes, he could see that he'd stirred up every molecule of dust between himself and the end of the  _ very  _ long vent. The globules were floating prettily in the air, reminding him of the spores when he'd watched Bozer playing the Last of Us.

Great. Because he needed zombies to go with mental patients and religious fanatics.

"...y'okay?" Her tone was almost tentative, and it occurred to him that she had no idea. She'd disappeared on her play for the hacker while they'd still been getting stabilized in a Canadian emergency room.

"Yeah, I'm good," he assured her, with the hoarse voice of a chainsmoker, and made a face at himself that he hoped Murdoc couldn't see. Way to exude confidence. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We're all good, Jack and Boze too. Just dusty in here."

Once he navigated the second turn he made much faster progress, and decided to bypass the first grate altogether. That would be way too easy, and besides, he figured he was only even with the beginning of the furniture barricade. He was still shoving the backpack along in front of him, and the moment he pushed it even with the grate, a filthy hand tore through the flimsy grate metal and grabbed it simultaneously with a scream that Mac was only about eighty percent sure was part of the soundtrack.

Whoever had it tried to snatch it away from him, but their fist was too big to fit back through the metal. Someone shrieked again, definitely a feminine voice, and any hope that it was an actor died when Mac saw the torn ends of the grate bite deep into that scrawny hand, immediately drawing blood.

"Whoa—" he shouted, trying to wrestle the pack away, but she wouldn't let go, and an overwhelming cloud of body odor swept through the vent, enough to make Mac's eyes start watering again. It took a few tries but he overpowered her and was able to tear it away. She fought with the grate another moment, tearing more serious wounds in her hand before it occurred to her to open her fist, and the moment her hand pulled back Mac shoved the backpack down the vent, beyond her reach. The moment it went by, the bloodied hand came clawing right back in after it, and then her entire arm, up to her shoulder. There were no words in the shrieking, just a terrible desperation that was almost as powerful as the smell.

"Stop, you're hurting yourself," he tried, pitching his voice low, and the terrible scrabbling paused for a moment—only for the arm to swing back for him. Her fingernails were long and unkempt, and they stopped a scant inch from his face, digging and sliding around on the vent metal.

"Stop moving and I'll help you," he promised, but he wasn't sure she even heard him over her own shrieking, and Mac scooted back a few inches, just to give himself some buffer.

Not an actor. Desperate and dirty, like a few—but not all—of the patients he'd encountered in the basement. The way her skin was tearing and bleeding on the metal, she was definitely dehydrated, and that kind of stink could not be manufactured. She had been lying in her own sweat and filth for days, if not a week.

"Please, listen to me. Listen to my voice. You're okay. Just take a breath."

In the end he had to wait her out, and it didn't take long. She was too exhausted to keep up that kind of struggling, and soon her frantic cries broke off into gut wrenching sobs. Her bloodied left arm sank to the floor of the vent, fingers still searching the metal for something, anything to latch onto.

"Hey," Mac tried tentatively, and she lunged for him suddenly with a wordless cry. He stayed at a safe distance and she gave up much sooner the second time. The third time he spoke to her, more gently still, she barely twitched before her fingers fell lax to the metal, utterly spent.

"Hey," he tried again, even more softly. "I'm Mac. I'm not gonna hurt you."

A sob was his only answer. Ever so carefully—and mindful of her sharp and now jagged and broken nails—he gently touched the back of her hand.

She withdrew it as if burned, catching her flaccid brachii muscle on the grate and flinching with another cry, this one full of pain. Mac silently laid his hands flat on the walls of the vent and dragged himself within reach, and when she tried for him again, he was close enough to simply catch her wrist and twist it, folding her arm up at her elbow and effectively preventing her from grabbing him.

She struggled wildly a moment, and Mac winced but held her firm and away from the jagged metal edges, and she tired immediately. He used his toes to shove himself up even with the grate, and finally got a look at her.

Woman, Caucasian, mid to late thirties. Maybe a hundred and ten pounds, completely wasted. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes were helpless, and he knew immediately she was no mental patient. She hadn't had a square meal, let alone a regular one, in ages.

She was homeless. That was how Murdoc had gotten away with it, gotten so many people into this facility. Some seemed to truly be violent criminals, some were actors, and some were simply homeless people he'd had rounded up off the streets to round out the background.

"Here, let's get your arm back through here, okay? Slowly." He released a little pressure on her wrist, trying to judge her reaction, but she was through. Her eyes were weepy and fearful, and she allowed him to maneuver her badly lacerated arm back through the grate. Once he'd set it down—on the floor inside her room—she drew the wounded appendage closer to her chest, laid on the floor, and cried.

He had nothing, no food or water, nothing he could give her. She needed medical attention, and the quickest way to get it to her was to end this fucking game as quickly as he could. Mac gave her a sympathetic smile, and then moved past her grate, as quickly as he safely could without snagging his own shoulders or side on the inwardly bent grate.

He could already see a shadow moving at the next grate, and Mac came to the realization that he was going to have to fight his way past these people, who were literally starving, as stand-ins for zombies. If that woman had been any healthier, she could have broken through that grate and crawled in after him. And he had no doubt they could and would hurt him, as badly as they felt they needed to, to see for themselves that he had nothing for them.

Mac looked uneasily at his swiss army knife. It was many things, a tool that could get him out of any problem, but he had never used it to injure someone. Not like that. And if they were desperate enough to slice themselves to pieces on the metal, the knife blade, as sharp as it was, was not a good tool to disincentive them.

Mac dragged himself up to his backpack and had just enough room to pull it over, hunting around in the larger outer pouch before his hands closed on something small and oblong, about the length of his palm.

Hoping against hope he wasn't going to have to use it, Mac pressed on.

The second room contained a male patient, who was at least semi-communicative. He'd pressed his face as tightly against the grate as he could, but it didn't seem to occur to him that he could rip through it.

"Hey, hey, hey missah. Hey missah. What's good, yeah, what's good?"

"I'm going to get help," Mac promised, quickly shoving the backpack past him, even as he jerked hopefully in its direction and bent his own grate. "There's a catering truck around here somewhere. All you can eat, I just gotta get through here and it's all yours."

Whether the man believed him or not, he nodded repeatedly, babbling "Yeah, missah, yeah missah, yeah that sounds good missah." and Mac was able to shimmy past him without incident.

The third patient room had neither a shadow nor a voice, and though Mac shoved his backpack past as before, nothing happened. He waited a few seconds, but eventually dragged himself close enough to the grate to see into the room, only to find it seemingly empty. Not terribly strong odor, though Mac wasn't sure he'd be able to tell at this point.

He crept a little closer, trying to get eyes on all corners of the room, and then a face bent down from above, and hard brown eyes bored into his.

Not wasted, not starving. Not homeless. And Mac was willing to bet, also not an actor.

The man rolled off the squealing twin bed onto his feet, drawing one back, and Mac nailed his head on the top of the vent as he tried to dodge the vicious kick that sent the flimsy grate into the space his face had occupied moments before. It didn't completely break free of the frame, forcing the man to drop to one knee and grab it, and Mac tried to use the opportunity to haul himself past as fast as he could.

But this guy was strong, the bent and battered grid snapped off the frame almost immediately. Mac was only halfway past, the vent was just too narrow and there was nowhere for him to go.

"Hi, little rat!"

The next kick hit him right under his floating ribs. The one after that hit him lower, just above the button of his slacks, and there was a third but at that point he was coughing so hard his abs saved him from any more serious damage. What felt like steel dug into his hips, yanking him against the frame of the missing grate, and Mac gasped around his spasming diaphragm and dug his fingertips into the next seam in the vent until he felt the skin split.

He just didn't have enough space. He couldn't even get a hand back down to his waist to try to pry the guy off.

"Skinny little rat," the patient snarled, and once again yanked him via his pants, as hard as he could, against the frame. He was trying to drag him into the room, and only the fact a human spine didn't bend that way was preventing him from succeeding. He was terrifyingly strong; Mac knew instantly that he wasn't going to win this tug-of-war.

And as breathless as he was right now, he wasn't going to win the fight that happened after, either.

Mac glanced as far down as he could see, wincing at the sting on his scalp, and did some quick geometry. Then he folded up his knees, as much as he could, and relaxed.

His attacker took that for surrender, grabbing onto his knees to drag him partly into the room. Mac hooked the tops of his feet on the vent wall, preventing the man from being able to pull him any further into the cell, but he had dragged Mac far enough back that he could finally maneuver his hand—and the object in it—down to hip level.

The guy cursed as he realized Mac's feet were hooked on the grate frame, and reached his arm in further to get a grip on Mac's shoes—exposing his forearm. Mac flicked the object in his hand and swung his right hip over, rolling as much as he could and trapping the patient's arm in the vent with him. Then he held the open flame against the man's skin.

The reaction was immediate; the patient howled in pain, trying to rip his arm away from the lighter's flames. Mac grit his teeth and continued putting as much power as he could into his hips, pinning the man's skin there to get roasted. After a few seconds of frantic struggle, the patient was able to extricate his arm, and Mac lifted his knees into the freed-up space, getting both feet against the grate frame. He pushed off as hard as he could, trying to keep his body on its side to reduce friction with the vent. It pushed him just far enough; a little scrabbling with his toes and his free hand pulled him just out of reach.

The patient screamed in rage and threw himself at the grate frame, but he was much too large to squeeze in, and Mac allowed himself a quick second to cough before he continued squirming—now one arm down, it was pinned to his side and there wasn't space to extricate it—towards the next cell.

He stopped to catch his breath equidistant between the last grate and the next, and that was when he heard Riley.

"Mac...Mac!" She was trying not to raise her voice too much, but Murdoc had cranked the volume as soon as the patient had gotten hold of him, and only now that the 'danger' was past was it low enough to hear her.

"'m fine," he managed, then let loose with another set of chest-rattling coughs. The dust in the vent was not helping. "Patients—reaching into the vents."

Riley was quite a moment. "Zombie run," she realized out loud. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He was pretty sure the back of his head was bleeding a little, and it hadn't done much for the headache he'd had since the explosion, but it was nothing incapacitating. His lungs, on the other hand, were definitely more of a concern. Adrenaline had allowed him to run around to this point, but the worst was likely yet to come, and the muscles in his chest, shoulders, and his shins were burning from the unusual position and exertion.

However, there was hope in the fact that each of the patient rooms were at least ten feet wide, meaning he'd bellycrawled forty feet and it was pretty unlikely the barricade extended this far. He pushed through the pain, arriving at the fourth grate in the same cautious manner as the others. This one appeared to be as empty as the last one, and Mac readied the lighter again.

He did end up needing it, but not the way he thought he would.

The patient room was empty. He just had to get through the grate that was much easier to push into the vent than it was to push out of the vent.

Mac was right up against it so it was easy to see the old rubber gasket that was partially keeping the grate in place. He considered his options, potentially using the SAK to try to pry it a little at a time, and then he shoved himself up a little further, until his trapped right arm was about level with the grate, and he set the cracking rubber gasket on fire.

It burned with an acrid smoke that did nothing for his lungs or his eyes, and the heat caused the grate to expand in its frame, bending itself slightly out of shape. Without the gasket gumming up the works, Mac easily found the right points to crack the grate out of the frame, using the plastic lighter as an improvised hammer as needed until he got enough of it out of the frame to push it the rest of the way.

Mac emerged, still coughing, into the empty patient cell, and carefully stretched out his aching arms and legs, sucking down deep breaths of cleaner air. He heard Riley's breath hitch, but she didn't say anything or call out, and he wondered exactly how much he'd just scared her.

"I'm out of the vent," and he rolled to his knees before pushing himself to his feet, eyes on the door's observation window. "Looks like I'm clear of the barricade."

"Iss'gettin' tighter." Her voice was just a breath, strained and shaking, and Mac froze in his tracks.

"What's getting tighter?" he asked sharply, pressing his earwig in deeper.

She gave a little gasp, then that curious, dry cough, and this time he recognized it for what it was. "Thing around m'neck." The fear in her voice was unmistakable. "Iss'gettin'tighter. I though'd'I was jus' freakin', but id jus' clicked'ighter."

The black choker.

Mac quickly navigated back to her feed on his phone, watching her shifting restlessly on the gurney. The medical restraints looked like the real deal, she was having zero luck getting a hand free, and her eyes were squeezed shut again. Her mouth was half-open as she tried to gulp air. But he couldn't see any other details, couldn't see any mechanism.

It could pressed into the pillow under her—

Like the device that had been put around her mother's neck, when her old hacker colleagues had kidnapped Diane to force Riley to hack the NSA again.

How Murdoc would know that was no longer pertinent. It made sense. To know she was going to die like her mother almost had, gasping for breath while the ribbon sliced into her throat—

It was a timer. He had to get to that room before the choker strangled her.

"Riley, listen to me." He wasted no time at the door, examining it quickly before he broke out the swiss army knife. "Listen. Try not to swallow, and keep your breathing as even as you can. The more you tense up against that ribbon, the more localized swelling it'll cause. You've gotta relax."

"R'lax?!" It was almost a shout, and despite the situation, the sheer incredulousness in her voice encouraged him. She wasn't giving up just yet. "Mac, iz'chokin' me!"

Mac had the door mechanism in pieces in under ten seconds, and he reached into the door to manually wrench the latch assembly away from the magnet holding it in place. "We've got time, Riley. Just—stay as still as possible and breathe as normally as you can." The more she struggled—honestly the more she panicked—the quicker she was going to use up her available oxygen.

He was able to pull the latch assembly off the magnet—there simply wasn't enough area on the mating of the armature and the electromagnet for the magnet flux to overcome direct backwards force—and shouldered the door open. No one was in the hallway to greet him, and Mac eyed the barricade behind him to ensure it was covering the real mental patient's door before he ventured out into the space.

The upstairs had been riddled with boobytraps, and Mac didn't have the time to dally around looking for other clues or objects. This was a race, him versus the choker, and he wasn't going to lose. So with his eyes on the ground for tripwires or mislaid tiles, and on the rooms for any patient surprises, he hurried unmolested to the end of the hall, which terminated in a pair of double doors. He didn't need the digital or paper map to know what he was looking at; these doors were labeled.

Gymnasium.

Mac quickly pushed himself up against the wall to one side, carefully peering through the observation windows, and confirmed for himself that it was the same view from the security office. A bear of a man was still pacing restlessly along the perimeter of the large room. He'd torn down a few pieces of infrastructure, including a couple feet of old pipe, but there wasn't much else. Just two basketball goals, tucked up too high for him to reach, and that was basically it.

If Mac went in there, it was him versus Goliath. Nothing to dodge behind, no cover. And the lighter and the SAK weren't going to do him much good.

Mac cast a glance back at the barricade, and in his ear, over the soundtrack, Riley sucked in an unsteady breath.

Trying to root through that pile for a weapon was out. Too much time.

Mac ran a hand through his hair, executing a slow spin and trying to keep his eyes wide open, cataloging everything. If they both panicked, this was over, and Murdoc won. It was just another mission. He and Riley had been in tighter squeezes than this.

You can do this, Mac.

There wasn't any other choice.

There also wasn't much in the way of other options. Not a lot of infrastructure for him to rip off the walls, either, though there was a oddly placed electrical box panel in the wall. Or rather on what looked like part of a vent built vertically into the wall. Mac hurried over and ran his blood-crusted fingertips over it, sucking air through his teeth as the action reminded him that he'd ripped them back in the other vent.

"—Mac—"

"I'm okay," he said immediately, unable to find a hinge. It was weird, a metal panel that was easily big enough for him to crawl through, but no way to open it. He grabbed the SAK and selected the prying blade. "I made it to a gym, but there's a freakin' Uruk Hai in there. Trying to find a way around."

For whatever reason Murdoc didn't buzzer him, letting him pry the metal plate off, and Mac was surprised to find it glued, rather than welded. Once he loosened the top corner he could use his fingers, and he caught the heavy plate as it finally came free, setting it down carefully to lean against the wall. No point in letting Andre the Giant know someone was outside.

The hole in the wall revealed a small maintenance ladder bolted to the concrete block, heading up into the ceiling, and Mac realized what it was. Access to the catwalk above the gym, so maintenance could change lights and raise the basketball hop assemblies. He kept a groan to himself, staring up into the dark tunnel a moment before forcing his hands to wrap around the appropriate rung.

"Found a ladder," he told her, forcing his voice calm. Then he started to climb.

Some of the anchor bolts had been artfully loosened, leaving segments of the ladder less secure than others, but Mac was able to scurry up it in record time, and besides, the channel was narrow enough that even if the ladder failed, he could reach all the walls and pull a Spiderman if he had to. Fortunately it wasn't necessary. Unfortunately at the top of the ladder another metal plate had been glued onto the wall, and this time Mac was on the inside.

Dropping a big metal plate would be a dead giveaway of his presence, so Mac was very careful as he started loosening the glue. This time he started at the bottom, pushing it forward until he could get a couple fingertips under it, and while it stung, it allowed him to keep hold of the plate as he worked. Once he had it free he nearly lost it, but managed to get a hand far enough up the side to prevent it from tipping forward.

Setting the plate down gently with a sigh of relief, Mac got his first look at the catwalk.

The breath he'd just taken choked him.

It was every rusted catwalk over an enemy warehouse in every video game he'd ever played. There was one option that ran the entire perimeter of the gymnasium, with two very narrow, railing-less walks bridging the gap over the gym, one on his right and one on his left. The ones spanning the open space had only ceiling anchors holding them, whereas the perimeter walk was bolted to the wall and ceiling, and Mac knew which one he was supposed to take.

Murdoc knew he was afraid of heights. Sprint across the open space and hope for the best, or take the long way around the perimeter of the room. Speed or safety. Leap of faith.

Had he taken that extension cord down from the ceiling, he could have thrown a loop and pulled an Indiana Jones and avoided the whole thing, but he sure as hell wasn't going back for it now.

"I'm—I'm on a catwalk," he whispered, knowing the cadence of his breathing had changed and knowing Riley could hear it. "Over the gym. Trying to find a way across."

"Mac, hurry," Riley gasped in reply. She was trying to hide the panic welling up inside her, but Mac heard it anyway.

The blond agent swallowed, staring out at his options. He knew what the "right" answer was—cross one of the narrow, railingless catwalks to the other side—and he was sure one of them was actually perfectly safe.

Taking the perimeter route would take more time. He  _ should  _ cross one of the catwalks. But with how slow he'd have to go across the narrow paths to maintain his balance and composure...the perimeter might actually be faster. Never mind safer, since the perimeter catwalks had two anchor points and would be harder to sabotage.

Before he could point out to himself that he was just making excuses, he started making his way to the right around the perimeter, staying close to the wall and moving as quickly as he dared.

"I'm on my way," he reported quietly, still trying not to make much noise. The patient below him hadn't noticed him yet, and he hoped to keep it that way. "Just hang on; I'm on my way."

"Don't tell me t'jus...hang'on, Mac," Riley snapped, channeling her panic into anger. "In case y'missd it, tha...psychopath pudda...noose aroun' m'neck!"

"I'm aware, of that, Riles," Mac assured her, feeling his jaw tense up.

"Then hurry!"

Mac frowned to himself, but hurried along the catwalk, rounding the corner to walk along the short side.

He was about half way across when it happened.

When he took a step, the metal groaned loudly and jolted beneath his feet. For what felt like an eternity, Mac was frozen as the catwalk shuddered and swayed. He realized, almost detachedly, that a large section of the catwalk—a section he was currently about a quarter or a third of the way across—was about to give way. It wasn't until the metal beneath his feet dropped another inch or so that he snapped out of it enough to leap back towards the safety of the catwalk behind him. As he leapt, the walkway finally gave out, plummeting to the gymnasium floor with a tremendous crash that shook the walls. Mac barely managed to get the upper half of his body onto solid steel; his stomach slammed into the catwalk and his feet dangled helplessly until he grabbed one of the metal bars supporting the railing with his right hand. He dug the fingers of his left hand into a seam in the metal and dragged himself painfully upwards, collapsing onto his back.

The blond agent took a moment to catch his breath, coughing as he did so. It took him a second to realize that Riley was trying to get his attention.

"I'm okay," he assured her, rubbing his stomach as he stood up on shaky knees. The patient had noticed him now, obviously, and was below him, climbing all over the broken piece of the catwalk and yelling incoherently. He was slamming the pipe in his hands against the wall and the mangled catwalk. "The catwalk gave out; I'm gonna try to find another way across."

In response, the phone on his arm—still miraculously intact—buzzed insistently. He looked at it to find a single word.

_ Forward _

Mac cursed under his breath, clenching his teeth and trying to maintain his composure. He looked out at the empty space in front of him where the catwalk had been and frowned. A section of roughly eight to ten feet had collapsed, and the railing on both ends was bent downwards. The edge of the catwalk in front of him looked a bit jagged and sharp where the weld had torn off.

This certainly wasn't going to be pleasant.

The blond agent took a second to think about his options, eyeing the distance he had to cross—and the distance he would fall before he hit the floor. If he had to guess, the catwalk was about twelve feet up—that much of a fall wouldn't necessarily kill him, but landing on the mangled remains of the catwalk might. And if it didn't, well...he almost certainly wouldn't survive a fight with the pipe-swinging mental patient waiting for him.

He had to jump. He had no other choice. A diving leap would be his best bet; even if he got a bad takeoff, he'd likely still be able to grab something. The section that fell had tugged the panel closest to him down a few inches, which was comforting; he wouldn't have to get much height. He just couldn't let himself think about it.

"Okay," he muttered to himself. "Okay. Okay, I can do this. I can do this."

He turned and jogged back a few feet, then spun to face the ledge. The agent aimed for a little farther than the edge of the remaining catwalk, counted to three in his head, then broke out into a sprint. When he reached the edge, he launched himself forward into the air with all his strength.

On the liftoff, he felt the metal beneath him give a couple inches, eating up a fair amount of the power he'd generated. His arms windmilled a couple times, and then he was falling.

His chin and sternum took the brunt of the impact, and it was sheer luck that he didn't bite off a chunk of his tongue as he scrambled to grab hold of something. He'd hit the catwalk at just below his collarbones, so he only had a split second for his hands to find their purchase. His left hand grabbed one of the bent railing support bars, and he clung to it for dear life as he dangled awkwardly above the gymnasium. He felt the fabric of his polo shirt snag and tear as his pitiful claim on the catwalk slipped away. Before he even processed what happened, his left hand was the only thing holding him up.

Gasping and fending off vertigo, Mac heard Riley trying to talk to him only in a vague sort of way. His attention was quite literally pulled when he felt a hand close around his pants near his right calf and yank on them. The agent nearly lost his grip, but his right hand flew up to grasp the support bar, and he looked down to find the pipe guy perched on the mangled catwalk, trying to pull him down to the gym below. Mac used his left foot to kick out at his attacker, and the man fell back with a shout, releasing him. Immediately, Mac turned his attention to trying to swing himself up.

Below, pipe guy picked himself up, retrieved the pipe he'd dropped, and scrambled around to Mac's other side. There was little Mac could do to brace himself when his attacker swung the pipe into his left knee with surprising force. The agent shouted in pain, gritting his teeth and looking up at the railing he was hanging from as it groaned. It wasn't designed to support a full person dangling from it, and with it bent as it was, he didn't have much time to spare.

The next hit from the pipe made contact with his left hip, and again he yelped, feeling his grip falter slightly. His heart slamming against his bruised sternum and lungs straining, Mac looked down and kicked the pipe away when it was swung at him again. Pipe guy actually seemed shocked, and Mac used the distraction to plant his left foot on the top of the man's head and push off, giving him the added momentum he needed to swing his leg up and over onto the catwalk. He bent his knee, pulling his lower body up until he could once again collapse onto the metal.

The blond agent groaned as he lay there gasping. His body was aching, with his knee and hip throbbing incessantly. His chin was bleeding pretty decently, and there were a few cuts on his chest.

But he was alive. He could still save Riley. That was all that mattered.

"I'm okay, Riles," he panted out at last, slowly and stiffly climbing to his feet. He used the hem of the polo shirt to put some pressure on his chin, pressing onward with a bit of a limp.

"Wha happnd?"

"Ah...I jumped across the gap," the blond man explained, moving with a mixture of caution and urgency. He didn’t even realize that the box of paperclips he’d grabbed at the start of this game—what felt like months ago—had fallen out of his pocket until the patient below began throwing handfuls of the metal at him, to no real effect. A quick check of his pockets revealed that the pens were gone, too.

So much for preparedness.

"Didn't—didn't quite go according to plan. But don't worry; I'm on my way."

"...don'worry?!" he thought he heard Riley mutter incredulously as he limped across the catwalk to the opposite side. He wasn't totally sure; she was hard to hear over the angry screaming coming from under him. However, the patient and his pipe were no longer a threat, and Mac made quick, noisy work of prying the metal plate off the entrance to the other maintenance ladder and slipping his aching left leg into the space. He put an experimental foot on the ladder, shoving as hard as his knee would allow, and even though he'd been testing for it, he still flinched in surprise when the entire thing broke off its wall anchors and dropped a couple of feet to crash onto the floor. Even if he'd had his weight on it it wouldn't have hurt him – the ladder itself was still intact, and it wasn't like it had far to go.

Just a little extra love note from Murdoc.

"Still okay," he assured her with a grunt, trying to walk the base of the ladder back against the wall. "How are—you doing?"

"''s'tight," and he could hear the proof of that in her voice. "Di'you ser'ously jus' tell me 'don' worry?'" she added, almost incredulously.

Mac grimaced a little and swung himself onto the ladder, waiting for it to tip and push his back against the other wall before he started down. It wasn't perfectly stable but the space was so small it didn't really matter. "Yeah. Sorry."

"I swear'd'god Mac, if'y'apol'gize  _ one  _ mor'time-"

"Try to stay calm," he interrupted, unable to completely keep the forbidden apology from his tone. "It's been about fourteen minutes since we got audio. Does it feel like the rate of tightening is constant, or—or is it happening in time with certain events?" Once back on terra firma, Mac pivoted in the tight space and got to work on hopefully the last metal plate he was going to have to move. His left knee was burning but it was holding—for now.

Riley was quiet in his ear, for so long that he nearly repeated himself. "Con'sn't." He heard her try to clear her throat. "But th' doors...tha's'appening when y'clear an ob's'cle."

Mac froze in the act of taking the panel off the wall. "What doors?"

He heard Riley take a rough breath. "Th'—whoever's'ere is geddin' closer...heard th'l'ck r'lease."

The patients she could hear banging on the doors. As he cleared Murdoc's little exercises, they weren't just beating down the doors. They were being let through.

Mac took a breath, to reassure her, to ask her how close they sounded—and the acrid stink of burnt flesh grabbed one hundred percent of his attention.

Sound was not a problem at this point—the falling ladder had made sure of that—but Mac still set the mental of the wall panel down gently, simply staring.

No one in the hallway cared either way.

It was a mirror of the hall he'd just come through, complete with another barricade, but this one had been breached from the outside in. It looked like a—a round ball of plasma had forced its way through, had bent and melted the metal bedframes and torched the warped wood furniture impossibly to make a smooth tunnel through the detritus.

The hallway tiles were buckled from the extreme heat. The ceiling had been partially melted. There were only five doors between the gymnasium and the burnt barricade, and four of them were melted closed. In front of each was the charred remains of what was meant to be the tenants.

Only that was impossible. The heat wouldn't have warped metal but left the rest of the barricade intact—the whole thing would have burned to ash. The amount of heat necessary to warp tiles or the subfloor would have burned through it. And the kind of heat needed to melt the doors would have left piles of carbon, not intact skeletons.

Having been to burnt-out buildings, the aftermath of bombs and incendiaries, he also knew that what he was smelling was raw meat that had been set on fire with gasoline, but it wasn't human.

This was definitely a set. A terrifying set, but a set nonetheless. With all the same details that tv shows and movies got wrong. And Murdoc would know that.

And with four doors melted shut, the fifth one—absolutely pristine—was clearly his destination.

Once he'd checked it for traps and found none, Mac let his hand hover next to the doorknob. "Riley, I'm going to open a door to the next section. Tell me if anything happens."

He heard a harsh exhale, Murdoc still had the battle music low. "Mac—th'thing'on'muh neck is geddin' tighder no'madder'whut.  _ Move  _ y'ur  _ ass _ ."

He knew she was right, so he tapped the doorknob—which didn't shock him—and then he turned it and pushed through.

It was a patient room, or at least it was meant to resemble one. Twin bed, immaculately made. Old timey dresser with a dingy white ceramic pitcher and bowl. Every available piece of wall and ceiling covered in hanging symbols of religion. There were Stars of David, triskelions, wheels of Dharma, Oms, a few Eyes of Horus, but the vast majority were the Christian cross. Some with Jesus, some without, in every size from tiny silver pendants to enormous plaster monstrosities.

Mac scanned the room, taking it all in, and then carefully crossed to the dresser. The pitcher on top contained what seemed to be clear water. He tried the first drawer and it didn't open, and when he tried the second he realized his error. Mac felt around the sides of the dresser a moment, and once he found a hinge, he started prying the other side open.

Instead of drawers pulling open, the entire face of the dresser opened from the side, like a cabinet. Inside was a plain, half-height locker, the kind you found in gym locker rooms the world over. Locked.

In his ear, he heard Riley struggle to swallow. "Y'through?"

"Yeah, uh—yeah. Think demons," and he quickly emptied his pockets of his two sets of keys. He tried the dead suit's keys first, since they were smaller. "Anything on your end?"

"...no." She didn't sound completely certain, and Mac frowned as the second key didn't fit either. "Wha'daya mean'demon?"

"Theme of the game," he said quickly, swapping to the janitor's keyring. "A demon took over a mental hospital, and it's up to the plucky alarm technician to avoid the patients and save the—damn it—innocent nurse that the patients think is controlling it."

The janitor's keys didn't fit either. Neither did the priest's.

"Lemme guess." Even strained and scared, Riley managed to put an edge of snark on it.

"Oh yeah," Mac confirmed, scowling at the locker a moment before attempting to rip it off the wall. It was bolted on like it meant it, and the dresser didn't budge either. "...Riles...I—"

"Foc's," she snapped in his ear. "Is'a game, yeah? Whaddaya see?"

"Uh." She was right, and Mac backed up, giving the room another look. "Patient room, gotta be...almost two thousand religions symbols, necklaces, mostly, hanging on all available ceiling and wall space. Twin bed—" and even as he described it he crossed to it, checking the pillowcase before ripping the sheets off. "And a dresser that's got a hidden locker in it. Need to find a key."

He thought uncomfortably of all the rooms and bodies he  _ hadn't  _ searched, but discarded that line of thinking immediately. He couldn't go back even if he  _ could  _ go back; Riley didn't have time. This seemed more like a themed challenge, almost like an—

"Escape room," he muttered aloud. "It's an escape room."

More confident now, Mac braced his good leg and tipped up the bedframe, and there, nestled between the mattress and the springs, was a well-worn piece of folded paper. Mac hurriedly fished it out and dropped the bedframe, turning to sink gingerly onto the mattress as he quickly unfolded it.

_ The Holy Spring guides the way to the Gates of our Salvation _

"Crap, not this again," he growled to himself. "I found a clue." He read the paper to her, then inspected it for further clues, but there were none to be had. "That's all it says."

"Whadd'are...gates of 'alvashun?"

"The religious theme. A patient has taken on the role of Head Priest to save the true believers, and the Chosen One, who only he can identify, is going to lead them to the Gates of Salvation. Big surprise, I'm the Chosen One. I locked up the priest and his followers and I have his key, but it didn't work in this lock."

If Riley had questions about his summary, she kept them to herself. "Whaddabout...th' Holy Spring?"

Mac licked his lips, glancing around the room again. "Got a pitcher and washing basin. Holy Spring could be..." He glanced up at the ceiling. "...holy water...but there are way too many crosses to fit into one pitcher. Besides, what's the point," and even as he asked the question, he limped over to the pitcher and inspected it.

"Not a weight thing...there's no scale," and he could pick up both the pitcher and basin. "And I don't see what good water, or any fluid is going to do getting a lock open...unless it's an acid...or a lubricant—" He spun, taking in the room full of pendants. About half were metallic, another quarter wood, the rest either stone or resin—

"Y'said...y'already met th'pries'...did he'ave a cross?"

...had he? Mac squeezed his eyes shut and went to rub a sore spot on the bridge of his nose when he rediscovered the glasses. "Ah...uh, no, he didn't," Mac said slowly, and the more he thought about it, the surer he became. Even the chain with the key had been hidden in the generous folds of that robe. If he'd had a cross or rosary beads on him, Mac hadn't seen it.

_ Shit _ . Was it going to come down to some prop that one of the legitimately insane patients had tossed before he'd even had a chance to interact with him?

"K..." Riley coughed, and the end of it had a little wheeze to it. "Whaddabou'd th'room?"

"Chapel," he corrected absently. "It was a chapel, and it was supposed to be non-denominational..."

Except that giant candelabra. Hugely ostentatious and on an otherwise plain granite altar. Mac pictured the thing, when he'd grabbed a candle from it just for something to do—

Gold. Gilded. Three tiers—kinda Knights Templar from Indiana Jones vibe.

"You're a genius," he told her, immediately scanning for bright gold. There was plenty of it in the room, but it narrowed the scope significantly, and the cross of the Knights Templar was a very distinctive shape. He found it hanging on the wall, about three feet off the ground, and tore it free of its hook. The moment he touched it, he realized it wasn't metal; beneath the shiny paint it had a grainy texture.

"Here goes nothing," he murmured, then hurried back to the pitcher basin. He laid the large cross in the basin, then carefully poured water over it.

For a split second, nothing happened—and then the water penetrated the paint to the substrate beneath, and it began to foam. Mac stiffly hopped back but the reaction didn't foam out violently; it was closer to some kind of salt dissolving. And as it dissolved, a glint of silver caught Mac's eye.

"The key's inside the cross," he murmured, and actually reached towards it before he realized how incredibly stupid that was. For all he knew, that solution  _ was  _ an acid. As soon as the key was basically exposed, Mac grabbed his SAK and selected the pliers. He didn't get buzzered, and was permitted to fish out the metal and carry it to the bed, where he used the discarded sheets to carefully wipe it clean before he used his fingers.

Ten seconds later the locker was open.

Inside of it was a bomb.

Mac froze absolutely still the moment he realized what he was looking at. Trigger mechanism, processor, board, multiple resistors leading off to other, smaller boards that looked almost like Raspberry Pis. The entire thing was protected by a sheet of Plexiglass, with about an inch of space at the top to dangle tools into. The scent of vinyl wafted out of that gap, telling him exactly what kind of device he was dealing with.

Plasticized RDX. Back of the locker was probably packed with it. Enough to blow him and the entire area to kingdom come, and possibly destabilize the floor above.

This time it wasn't his breathing that tipped Riley off—it was the soundtrack, ticking up to over 130 beats per minute. Mimicking his racing heart.

"...thad...Mac, another'door—"

_ Damn  _ it.

"Riley, how close are they?"

Her voice was nothing more than a strained whimper. "...close. Really—close."

This was a complicated bomb. Set up by a computer genius, clearly bluetooth and network attached. And with that plexiglass in the way he couldn't use his SAK, couldn't use any of his tools. It had to go first.

Mac still had his multitool in his hand, and the moment that hand twitched in the direction of the plexiglass, the gameshow buzzer went off.

"—Mac—"

"I'm okay," he said quickly, glancing at the phone. The crafting icon was once again crossed out, and the Pass button was available.

"—whud—"

"I'm not allowed to—improvise," he said quickly, inspecting the inside of the locker door for a clue. "It's how Murdoc's been keeping me from—from what he calls cheating. I have to use video game logic, not  _ actual  _ logic. If I try to solve a problem off-script, or use a pass..."

There was some kind of writing on the inside of the locker door, coded in more religious symbols. He was sure if he turned around he'd be able to find a pendant that looked like all of these symbols, and probably those pendants would—maybe magnets, to scramble or deactivate the Raspberry Pis, he'd have to dangle them through the gap in the plexiglass and get them to the right place in the right order.

Riley took another wheezing breath, and Mac curled his shaking fingers into fists. He knew what this was.

This was a problem that was supposed to force him to use a pass. To hurt Riley. Especially if there were loose patients in her vicinity. If she made a sound, they'd know exactly where to look, meaning the pass that was meant to buy him time would actually cost her time.

She was already having trouble speaking, having trouble breathing. He didn't have the time to do this the way it was intended to be done.

Mac stared at the bomb in front of him, at the design, trying to find a flaw. Murdoc was many things but he wasn't a bomb maker; that was why he'd acted as a distraction for the Ghost to set up the bomb under his house at Christmas. And this wasn't the Ghost's style, it wasn't elegant enough. It truly looked like a prop from a video game, it was all electronic components—

Mac blinked, and then he realized there was a very simple solution.

An  _ actual  _ solution.

...but did that constitute 'improvising'?

Murdoc had to figure out what Mac was going to do before he could judge whether or not it was allowed. The glasses were giving him a first person view, and of course there were cameras all around, but in this room, the cameras were probably slightly impeded by all the damn hanging things. Mac glanced off to the side, staring at the locker clue again, before he straightened with a frustrated growl and cast his eyes up at the ceiling, as if looking for the right pendant.

As he shifted his weight, he casually brought both his hands up onto the top of the dresser, as if using it to stabilize himself. As soon as he was in the position he wanted, he half turned, putting his body between the dresser and the rest of the room, and without looking down, without so much as glancing at what he was doing, he silently picked up the basin of 'holy water' and tossed the contents into the dresser.

Some of the liquid splashed onto his hands, it was unavoidable, but the vast majority ended up sloshing right where he wanted it, into that one inch gap, soaking the electronics inside. There were a couple little pops, nothing nearly as flashy as it would have been in a video game, but the end result was the same. The board was dead.

Mac absently plopped the basin back on top of the dresser, and when he reached into the locker, he found that the plexiglass piece now swung open on concealed hinges. The 'bomb' also opened from hinges on the same side, and revealed a simple black lever. Mac blinked at it, then reached out a slightly reddened hand and grasped it. When he pulled it down, the locker, the dresser, and the wall shifted backward with a grind of cement on cement, and Mac straightened to find the secret door sliding away to reveal what looked like some kind of medical storage room.

The ball of plasma—or more accurately, the 'demon'—had clearly been through this room too, because it was blackened from some kind of blast, and ruptured tanks of various medical gases were hissing. Some were alight. Even as Mac warily crept closer, apparently a tank of oxygen had leaked enough O2 for the cloud to drift towards open flame—there was a small but powerful explosion that had Mac flinching back for the safety of the escape room.

The medical storage room was about twelve feet by twenty, and there was a pock-marked door on the other side. It was a relatively simple challenge.

Get across the room without getting burned or blown up.

In his ear, Riley gasped, clearly preparing to ask him something. Urge him to hurry. Encourage him. Waste what little oxygen she could get trying to help him.

Since a cloud of O2 had just ignited, the odds were as good as they were going to get. His body would displace air, might waft something else explosive towards those flames—

Without another thought, Mac ripped off the backpack and threw it towards the far door at roughly chest height. There were several fireballs, and then he held his breath—no telling what gasses these were, some could be anesthesia—and sprinted the same path.

Flames shot out at his left and he ducked his head, but he was moving too fast for it to do more than singe. In a few seconds he was through, and he barely had the presence of mind to snag one of the backpack straps before he slammed into the pockmarked door and threw it open.

Or tried to. It was bent in its frame, he had to throw his already aching shoulder into it to get it to budge. And this time he didn't need Riley's gasping cry in his ear. He could see clearly through the gap in the door.

There were people there. Patients.

Mac pulled back and rammed the door as hard as he could with his good shoulder; the metal screeched in protest but it gave enough for him to get an arm through the gap, and after that it was just a matter of bench-pressing the damn thing open enough to squeeze through. He was now in the treatment area of the wing, a hallway he didn't remember seeing from the security office but it didn't matter. It was a mess, medical carts overturned and a body dressed like a nurse that had been—

Mac let his eyes slide right over it, but the damage was done. Had been done to her, and real body or not, it was what was going to happen to Riley if the patients got hold of her.

Down the trashed hallway were double doors, the kind in every hospital the world over, and through them he could see three patients—all male—all gathered off to one side of the hallway. He was too far to see what they were pushing against, but he could hear the echo of the pounding in his own earpiece. If that wasn't Riley's room, it was damn close.

Too close.

Mac fumbled with the backpack, hurtling down the hallway and digging in his pocket for his security badge. Only when he got closer did he notice the flat badge reader panel was cockeyed. It still had power, the red light was on, but when he waved his security badge nothing happened.

Mac tried it again, then grabbed the reader, and it basically disintegrated into parts in his hand. Clearly it was meant to show him that the patients had broken it trying to get to Riley, and the mechanism had failed closed.

He punched the doors, shouting in frustration, and they didn't budge.

"C'mere! Hey, hey, over here!" he shouted, but none of the three so much as glanced at him, and he pounded hard on the doors again with his fist, barely feeling it.

Just like the freezer and Bozer. He could see but he couldn't get there.

And Murdoc wasn't going to let him cut a hole in the wall this time.

Mac searched the frame of the door frantically, there had to be a way, a video game way through, and that was when he noticed the flat push panels on the doors, the kind that allowed you open them by shoving into them with a gurney.

There was a round lock.

"Keys, keys," he muttered, fumbling with the rings. It was a small lock, maybe dead suit's keys— "Riley, I'm right here, just hang on—"

She wheezed in another breath, but whatever she said, he couldn't make it out.

The key slid into the lock smoothly, and turned on the first try. Mac pushed through the doors, just in time to see the three patients shoving through the next one.

It wasn't coincidence. Opening this door had triggered that one.

In his ear, he heard Riley force out a low, guttural yell. It was supposed to be threatening, but all he heard was fear.

That was her room.

He sprinted the ten or so yards, it was  _ just  _ enough distance that the door swung itself closed about two strides before he could get to it. Same situation—the security panel was damaged, and Mac didn't even try to use the badge. They were already on her, trying to rip her off the gurney, and Mac dug his numbed hand into his pocket, coming up with the priest's key.

This wasn't salvation.

He heard himself cry out, his fear welling up his throat, and jammed his hand back into his pocket, finally digging out the janitor's keyring. Three keys, he fumbled to get his weirdly tingling fingers to grab just one—

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

It was Jack's voice, soothing and calm, and it flipped just enough of a switch in his head that Mac was able to freeze, then carefully select a key. Use both his reddened hands to grasp the doorknob. To not look at what was happening inside.

The door was the obstacle he had to clear first.

And this key wasn't the right one.

He didn't look up, he didn't listen to Riley gasping, somehow audible over the soundtrack picking up tempo every second. Trying to force him to rush, make a mistake—

The second key was the right one, and the knob turned in Mac's hands.

He threw it open with a furious shout, as forceful as he could make it, and two of three men crowded around her gurney turned towards him. He didn't look at the bed. He didn't look at Riley. Beside the door was a cart he'd seen earlier in the video footage, and he knew there was a pair of old-fashioned electroconvulsive therapy paddles sitting there, heavy and metal. He grabbed one left-handed and swung from his hips.

The metal paddle struck the first guy on the crown of his skull; there was a crack and the man ragdolled. Mac used the momentum from the hit to pivot, putting his weight on his right leg and striking out at the next patient's knee with his left foot. The kick connected solidly, he saw the joint dislocate but didn't stop, and in the same motion he brought the paddle around again, striking the falling man in the face.

The force of the swing pulled Mac's weight onto his left foot and his hip buckled, sending Mac stumbling towards the wall. He had to drop the paddle to catch himself, pushing himself around to see the third patient was on the gurney, trying to yank Riley off of it by the neckline of her uniform and her hair. Her ankles and wrists were still tied down, but she was fighting him as much as she could—

Mac launched himself at the man with a shout of pure rage, barreling into his exposed side with his right shoulder, exactly the way Jack would have. He felt the man's ribs crack as they crashed into the wall behind Riley's bed, and then Mac straightened and threw a hard right hook at the stunned patient's temple.

There was blood on his fist when he pulled it back, but his hand was so numb he wasn't sure if it was his own or the patient's. The guy slid down the wall like a wet noodle, and then Mac turned to the gurney.

Riley's mouth was stretched open in a frantic attempt to breath, her eyes wide and wild, and there was blood on the pillow that had been knocked aside in the struggle. There was more of it, dribbling out from beneath the black choker, and Mac froze for a split second as he recalled how this had worked back when it was her mother that was being strangled right in front of them.

The mechanism had been inaccessible, he'd had to use the scissors on his swiss army knife, and he'd needed leverage to cut through the aircraft cable. The arms of the gurney might work if he had something to—

In front of him, Riley sucked in air with a high-pitched squeak, and he actually  _ heard  _ the mechanism click as it tightened again.

"Sorry, Riles," he muttered, and god did he mean it as he took her head in his hands and turned her face away from him, turned her onto her left shoulder so he could see. And there on the back of her neck, right where her skull met her vertebrae, was the box. Mac ripped the black ribbon choker away so he could see, the cable was already cutting into her skin.

The mechanism was a simple metal box, held closed with a single screw, and Mac swore and went for his swiss army knife. His fingers were shaking but he got the driver bit extended in a few seconds, and got to work. Riley arched against him, frantically trying to breath, and he clenched his jaw and set his right shoulder against her back, pinning her on her side to keep her from moving.

"I'm sorry, Riles, I'm so sorry, almost done, just a few more seconds—" He didn't know what he was saying, he didn't know if it was helping. The screw was impossibly long, it took an eternity to get it out and pull the cover off to find a simple ratcheting gear, an axle, and the spool of cable.

Unlike Diane's, this one was intact and he jammed the screwdriver bit into the rachet, raising the gear, which allowed the cable spool to turn easily. He gave the entire mechanism a yank, he knew it would dig the cable deeper into Riley's skin but it was the only way to loosen the cable since he had to hold the screwdriver bit in place, but it worked, and the cable spool spun until it ran out of cable, and then it was over.

Mac tossed the device over his shoulder, quickly leaning up and unwrapping the cable from around her neck as Riley coughed and gagged. She was bleeding, but it didn't look like the cable had cut deeply enough to hit her jugular or carotid, and then he followed the smears of blood down her throat to her chest, and saw that the already low-cut uniform had lost a couple buttons. He averted his eyes instantly and focused his attention on her nearest wrist.

"You're okay, Riley, you're okay, I've got you, just breathe." The medical restraints were old and leather, but easy enough to unbuckle, and Mac hurried around the gurney, releasing them in turn. The second he got both her ankles free she curled up on herself, still lying on her left side, still coughing and gasping. When Mac got around to the left side of the gurney he slowed down a little, offering his hands palm out, and she started fumbling with the last restraint by herself.

"Hey, Riley, hey. It's okay. I can do it," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. She answered him with a sob, and he heard one of her fingernails snap, but she did it herself. The second she was free she curled that arm to her chest as well, holding the torn uniform closed with trembling hands.

Mac took a shuddering breath of his own, then straightened so he wasn't looming over her, and took a quick look around the room to give her a moment. The three patients he'd taken down were  _ down _ . He could only see the one, the one whose knee he'd dislocated, and his stomach clenched uncomfortably as he realized exactly how hard he'd hit him.

How hard he'd hit all of them.

"Just breathe," he heard himself say, his voice still believably steady while his entire body started to tremble. He almost flinched when she shifted on the bed, hesitantly pushing herself up, and he reached out cautiously to help her, and then he suddenly had his arms full of Riley Davis.

Mac held her as tightly as he dared, sinking onto the mattress beside her, and for a few seconds the only thing they did was breathe. Even though he wasn't the one who had almost been strangled to death, his chest was tight and he felt a little lightheaded.

"Just breathe," he repeated softly, and Riley sucked down a loud, ugly sob. He sat there with her as long as he dared, until she seemed to regain at least part of her composure, and then he loosened his grip a little, judging her reaction. "Easy, take your time."

She swallowed loudly, her face buried in his neck. "...we don'ave it." The fact that she was still slurring made Mac really study the equipment around her bed, but the patients had done a bang-up job of ripping all the leads off her, and he didn't see any IVs or bags of liquid.

"For this we make time," he told her simply, daring to run a hand up and down her trembling back. "I'll take care of anyone who comes through that door."

She sniffled, loudly in the relative silence, and only then did Mac realize that the soundtrack wasn't going anymore. He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but he used the silence and lack of anxiety-inducing music to try to visualize the map of the hospital in his head. "How do you feel? Do you think you can walk?"

"Y-yeah." He felt her nod quickly into his neck, then pull away, and he let her. Her left hand was still clutching the torn neckline of the dress closed, and Mac deliberately didn't look at her hands, deliberately didn't permit the camera on his glasses to see.

"Let's get that fixed, yeah?"

Without waiting for her to agree he stood, favoring his left hip as he bypassed the two patients on the floor and checked out that cart. Besides the other paddle, there were the standard boxes of latex gloves, tubes of electrode gel, tongue depressors, ball cotton that was already bloody—

Mac blinked, watching another drop bleed out of the cotton balls, and then he reached up and touched his chin. His numb fingertips came away bloody.

Frowning and pressing the aforementioned cotton to his face, Mac continued hunting around and in an empty antiseptic wipe box, he found a handful of paper clips.

"...that's fucking hilarious," he spat venomously, but he grabbed them anyway. Just because they were a wink from Murdoc didn't mean they weren't useful.

And Murdoc didn't buzzer him as he returned to the gurney, where Riley had sat up and was massaging her scalp, her eyes wet and narrow.

"Uh, stab one end of these into the fabric where the buttons were, then you can run them through the buttonhole and twist them down." He was proud that his hand was steady as he held them out, and Riley dropped her eyes to them and stared for a second before she accepted them.

Again, Mac averted his eyes, moving to stand guard at the foot of the gurney. This lull wasn't going to last forever.

"Wha's'wit'the glazzes?"

Mac continued applying pressure to his chin, glancing down to see about his chest. Not that he had any gauze or tape, just cotton balls. Nothing he could use to bandage up her throat, unless he made a cotton ball necklace and used the choker to tie it down. Somehow he figured Riley wouldn't go for that. "First person camera. Not allowed to take them off. Can't even get punched in the face," he added, knowing that she just needed to hear someone's voice while she did what she was doing. "Murdoc has spares staged throughout the hospital just in case."

"...y'know y'got a black eye," she told him, still shakily, and he listened to the sounds of the cheap fabric rustling.

"Probably." From the glasses getting crushed into his face, or maybe from the generator chassis. "Got a phone, too, acts as a head's up display. Pretty sure you're not allowed to have it," he added, just in case that was her next question. "It's how he gives me objectives, and how I was able to get your camera feed and find you."

Riley made a small noise of frustration, then coughed, and Mac forced himself not to turn, to keep an eye on the eerily empty hallway. He heard her slide off the gurney, then the sound of her bare feet slapping on the tile. Even without turning it sounded unsteady to him, when she was even with his shoulder, he turned just in time to catch her. Her right arm was still wrapped around herself but at least the dress was more or less covering everything again. She winced when his hand closed around her right bicep, and he realized fingerprint sized bruises were starting to become visible on her arms and legs. "Sorry," he told her softly, adjusting his grip so he was sure he wasn't hurting her. "Do you need a minute?"

She gave him a stilted shake of her head, then the arm holding herself reached up and gently touched her neck. He opened his mouth to offer the cotton ball necklace, or even just ripped up sheets, and she cut him off before he could speak.

"Izz'fine." Her voice was a little stronger, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were dark not with fear but with anger, so much so that he almost flinched. "Whuh's th'next objective?"

It was like Murdoc had simply been waiting. The phone vibrated on his arm, and Mac angled it so they could both see.

_ Objective: Escape the hospital _


	8. Exam 3, Part 5

_ Objective: Escape the hospital _

"Wow, shocker," she growled, her eyes narrowing further as she swayed a little, and Mac reached out, slowly, and put a gentle finger under her chin. Her eyebrows bunched and then she swallowed convulsively, but she let him very gently tilt up her head, mindful of her throat, and get a better look at her eyes.

They weren't just dark with emotion. Her pupils were blown.

"I think you might have a concussion, Riles."

She rolled her eyes and then stumbled a little into him. The moment it registered she flinched away from him, and Mac released her chin but kept a firm hand on her arm as she tried to get her equilibrium back.

"...think'y'mighd be right," she muttered, and finally stopped holding herself to put a steadying hand on the wall. "Nod'like iss'gonna go 'way in five min'its, we godda go." Pulling her right arm away from him, she made her mostly steady way to the door, glancing both ways through the glass. She apparently saw nothing, because she turned the doorknob and then looked back at him. "Y'comin'?"

He opened his mouth, to offer her more time to recover, to just take a second, and maybe she saw it on his face, because she glanced down at the patients in the room, her expression impossible to decipher, and then she pulled open the door.

No additional 'monsters' were triggered, but the soundtrack clicked back on in his ear, low and ominous, and Mac was right on her heels as they stepped back into the hallway. Mac had ignored the other doors on his sprint through, knowing exactly where his objective was, and they looked surprisingly innocent. There were no dead bodies in this hallway, very little blood. Just the props that the patients had trashed trying to get into Riley's room.

Riley glanced around, then over at him. "Well?" she asked simply.

Right. Which way.

Mac pulled up the map on the phone, and Riley shuffled over as he zoomed into the East Wing. "We're here," and he indicated the correct hallway. "I came in from this hallway—" and of course the map didn't show the secret doorway. "There's a barricade there but it's got a hole burned through it we could probably crawl through." If he could find something to protect them from getting cut on the metal when they did it. "There's also—"

He stared at the map another second, then looked up, aligning himself with the direction. Once he had, he limped over to the door and peered through. Though it looked like every other exam room door in the hall, it was some kind of bridging room to the hallway next door, and clearly the path that Murdoc intended. Just in case it really  _ was  _ an option, Mac continued, back towards the way he'd originally come, and sure enough, as soon as he started rummaging for the key to the door, Murdoc buzzered him.

Oddly, the Pass button was still solid and available.

"Riley, do you have anything on you besides that uniform?"

The arm that was crossed over her chest again moved as she patted down the dress, then she shook her head once, wincing as it pulled at the clotting blood on her neck.

God, she looked like a zombie herself. Pale, dressed in a bloody and torn nurse's uniform, hair unkempt, limbs and forehead bruised, and from here her throat looked like it had been completely slit—

But it's not. She's alive. She's walking and talking and alive, and you have to keep her that way.

Whatever a Pass cost them now, it would undoubtedly be bad. Lock a door, start a fire—the possibilities were nearly endless. Mac walked back to the 'correct' door and Riley met him there, surprising him by taking his left wrist and turning his arm so she too could see the phone.

"Riley...I don't think you're allowed to—"

"Whud'iz'thad?"

Mac glanced, and he realized he hadn't yet tapped Cancel, so the crafting icon was still flashing a red X, and the Pass/Cancel menu was still up. He swallowed a sigh.

"Nothing. It's a—a way to get around the rules, and let me improvise, but it's not worth it." He tapped Cancel before she could touch anything, and the last thing he'd been viewing—the map—popped back up. Riley scowled at the device.

"How sure're you—"

"I'm sure," he cut her off, before Murdoc could. "He'd never let you use the phone to hack the system. If you try, we'll...regret it," he finished lamely, and Riley's eyes cut to his face.

All the fear was gone, replaced with determination and what looked like murderous levels of rage. "Mac—there  _ are no rules _ ."

"Riles—"

"I could 'ave us oudda 'ere 'n th'rdy sec'nds withat—"

"No." Mac heard the harshness in his own voice, and he grit his teeth and forced it to soften when he spoke again. "Riley, I'm sorry; I'm not going to give him an excuse."

"He can't hurt me 'nymore, Mac—"

"No, he can't electrocute you anymore," the blond agent argued. "He can still hurt us both. Look, it's almost over—it's gotta be. We just gotta keep playing along for a little while longer."

Riley looked like she wanted to argue, but Mac simply didn’t let her. Instead, he threw open the door to the cut-through treatment room, standing back in the hallway a bit, but no traps were triggered, so he turned to look at her.

“Y’comin’?”

The field analyst gave him an acidic look for repeating her own question back at her, but she followed him anyway.

The treatment room, much like the hall, didn’t look sinister at all. No bodies, no blood, not even a lot of destruction. But neither agent felt like they wanted to stick around, so they made a beeline for the next door. The window in this one was blacked out—Murdoc clearly wasn’t through with them yet—so Mac made sure Riley stayed behind him, and then he pulled the door open a crack and peered out.

The door opened almost directly into a corner, so he couldn’t see what lay beyond. Frowning, the blond man signaled to Riley to stay close behind him and stay quiet, and when she nodded, he eased the door open all the way and stepped out into the hall. After a couple feet, they turned ninety degrees to the left, and then Mac saw their next obstacle.

For about twenty feet in front of them, the whole floor was covered in broken glass vials—and pools of whatever substance they’d contained.

Mac felt his shoulders slump a tiny bit as Riley squeaked out a “whoa” around bruised vocal cords. Experimentally, without even looking back at Riley, he put some weight on his left leg and immediately shifted back, taking a deep breath to smother any noises of pain. He wasn’t sure how long either leg was going to hold out—the left one was swollen in multiple places, obviously, but the right had taken somewhat of a beating, too, between the generator, the vent, and having to carry most of his weight since the catwalk incident.

This was going to suck. But, he had no other option; Riley didn’t have shoes.

“Here, climb on,” he said after another moment of hesitation to try and make sure the pain wasn’t visible on his face as he crouched down.

“Um.” Riley gave him a look.

“In case you forgot, Riles, you’re not rocking any footwear,” Mac reminded her, trying not to sound impatient and mostly succeeding. “So unless you want me to go back to those guys I knocked out and get you some shoes—”

“Gross. Fine.” She grabbed his shoulders from behind and jumped up onto his back, where he looped an arm under each of her knees. He faltered just slightly, but kept his footing.

“You sure you can do this?” Riley whispered hoarsely.

“I’m good,” he promised, genuinely unsure if he was lying or not. Riley nodded against his good shoulder, slipping her arms around his neck only tight enough to secure herself. Once he was sure she was ready, he started walking.

The added strain was excruciating, but Mac ground his teeth together and tried to take relatively steady steps. He was basically holding his breath by the time they were halfway there, trying to keep back any indication of the pain shooting through him. He actually thought they might make it—they were a mere three feet shy of the end when his strength failed him. His overworked right leg buckled, and his knee slammed hard into the glass.

“Mac!” Riley squeaked as he shouted in pain, feeling the glass rip through his pants and stab into his knee. The blond agent barely had the presence of mind to use his right hand to put her bare foot on the back of his calf before he brought it forward to steady himself on the clean floor just out of reach. He took a couple seconds to gather himself, tears welling up unbidden in his eyes before he pulled himself across the glass just a bit further and released Riley’s left leg.

“Go,” he ground out, unable to say anything else for the moment. Riley quickly maneuvered over him and stepped out onto the clean floor. Only then did Mac force his left knee to straighten and pull him upright, leaning heavily on the wall to his right for support. Then he crossed onto the clean—well, glass-free—tile where Riley stood, breathing quickly and leaning back against the wall.

“Omygod,” Riley muttered, looking down at his right leg, and after swallowing hard, he followed her eyes.

His pant leg was wet from the knee down—the pants were black, so they couldn’t necessarily see the blood—but where the material had torn, it was plain to see that he was cut badly. Mac shook his head.

“I’m good,” he repeated, coughing into his arm and then reaching down and brushing off the glass caught on the material, carefully plucking out the few shards that were embedded. They had reached a part of the hallway that branched off; it continued on straight ahead but also went off to the right. Mac pulled up the map and motioned for Riley to join him.

“Alright, look—we’re here,” he zoomed in and pointed to a spot on the map, dismayed when he realized his hand was shaking. “The exit is here. It’s another four turns to get there, and I don’t know what’s waiting for us, so I want you to memorize this, okay?”

“Why’would I ‘ave to mem’rize it if I’m with you?” Riley frowned at him.

“We might have to run from something or someone; I’d rather we didn’t have to communicate where we were headed if we do,” Mac told her, meeting her eyes steadily. She stared back at him for a second before nodding, looking down at the screen attached to his arm, studying the route. Mac let out a slow, somewhat shaky breath. In reality, he simply wasn’t sure he could make it the rest of the way to the door, and he needed to make sure that Riley could get out if he couldn’t.

In fact...

“And here,” he added, digging into his pocket and fumbling to pull out all the keys he’d gathered. He plucked the priest’s key out from the mess and shoved the rest back into his pocket. “Do me a favor and hold onto this.”

“Why?” Riley demanded suspiciously. Mac held up his still-reddened hands.

“I got some water on my hands in the escape room and something in it is making them numb,” he explained. “I don’t want to be fumbling with the key at the end of this.”

Again, his companion hesitated, and he knew she must suspect what he was doing, but he kept his expression neutral, and eventually, she took the key from him and hung it around her neck—the costume she was wearing had no pockets, so she didn’t have a choice.

“Thanks.”

Riley simply gave him a look and continued studying the map on his arm. Mac felt a particularly painful twinge in his legs, and as he swallowed back a whimper, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out the paper map.

“Here,” he said, trying to steady his voice he unfolded it and flipped it to the correct page. He went for the pens he’d grabbed back at the start, but then remembered he’d lost them at some point. With a grimace, he realized that he didn’t need a pen, and instead traced the route in the blood on his fingers. “Just so you don’t have to rely on the phone.”

Riley took it from him distastefully, but didn’t protest. The blood wasn’t overly wet—he didn’t dip his finger in blood or anything—so she folded it up and tucked it into the top of her costume, securing it in place with one of the paper clips while Mac kept his face—and by extension, the camera in his glasses—pointed at the opposite wall.

“Ready?” she asked, and Mac took a breath and nodded. He carefully pushed off the wall, and then the two of them started making their way around the corner to the right, Mac no longer limping only because he couldn’t limp on both legs at the same time.

They made it all of thirty feet before he started to feel it.

It was subtle at first. Like his knee not quite straightening like it was supposed to. Easily written off as the result of the cuts.

It wasn’t until it nearly gave out on him that he realized it was more than that. He crashed into the wall with a grunt of pain.

“Mac?” Riley’s concerned voice made him try to squash the terror that welled up in him, but it wasn’t really working. “Wha’s’wrong?”

He couldn’t lie to her. Not now.

“The vials back in the hall,” he panted out, desperately trying to contain his panic. “I think—I think they contained a paralytic, like the one I was dosed with in the warehouse or the one Jack ate. I can’t...I can’t move my knee. Riley, you’ve gotta go.”

“Whad? No—”

“Riley, this could spread,” Mac told her earnestly, meeting her eyes. “I’m dead weight; just go.”

“Not happ’nin’,” Riley refused stubbornly.

“Riley—” Mac was cut off by the sound of a door opening, followed by rushing footsteps, from the hallway with the glass. They turned to look and found that Knife Guy—sans knife, thank God—along with the two who’d found him after he tripped the trap in the patient’s room took a left around that corner and stopped, staring at them.

“Riley, run,” Mac growled under his breath. He didn’t know how these guys got out, but it didn’t matter; if they got their hands on her, they’d kill her.

“Well, what do we have, here?” Knife Guy chuckled, starting to slowly advance towards them.

“I am not jus’ leavin’ you ‘ere,” Riley hissed back.

“Riley, you need to go,” Mac repeated, his eyes begging her to listen. “Please. Just go; I’ll be fine.”

“I knew you weren’t the real deal,” Knife Guy scoffed as Mac pushed himself off the wall and stood slightly in front of Riley, barely steady as his left leg trembled under his weight. The blond agent was certain the only thing keeping him upright was adrenaline at this point. “You were working with the demon all along.”

Riley hadn’t moved, so Mac pushed her back slightly with one hand, never taking his eyes off the approaching men, and hissed, “Go!”

“Now, you stay right there, girl,” Knife Guy chuckled. “We’ll deal with you once we’re done with your friend.”

They were maybe fifteen feet away when Mac registered the sound of more footsteps rushing towards them, from where the hallway branched off between them. The advancing men noticed it a bit after Mac did, and they turned to look just in time for Benny to come sprinting out and swing his toaster into the nearest guy’s head. His victim ragdolled instantly, leaving just the lanky one and Knife Guy standing.

“Benny?” Mac blinked in surprise at the man, while everyone else seemed frozen in shock.

“‘Sup, Casper,” the patient—and Mac was pretty certain he was a patient, not an actor, now—shot him a smile. He had torn two strips of fabric and had used them to tie the stuffed otter to his chest in a sort of makeshift papoose. When he caught sight of Riley behind him, he jolted and grabbed the toaster, thrusting the undented side in her direction. Riley flinched back hard, but Benny didn’t throw the kitchen appliance, and Mac put an arm out in front of her.

“It’s okay,” he said reassuringly, though who he was trying to soothe was unclear. “It’s okay. Benny, this is my friend.”

Riley looked at the toaster in confusion, blinking before looking back up at Benny. The patient was relaxing from his stance.

“Mrs. Casper,” he gave her a respectful, if almost sad nod, but at that moment, the other two men snapped out of their trances.

“You son of a  _ bitch _ !” the lanky one launched himself at Benny with surprising force, and Knife Guy sprang at Mac, tackling him to the floor. The blond agent’s legs might have been useless, but his arms were more or less fine, and he got in several good punches before he finally looked up at Riley.

“Riles, go!”

The field analyst hesitated for just another minute, looking back and forth between him and Benny before she finally turned and ran in the direction of the exit.

Mac felt relief flood him, but it was quickly swapped for pain when Knife Guy nailed him in the ribs, prompting a coughing fit from his still-struggling lungs, and his attacker used the distraction to get to his feet and kick Mac in his swollen hip.

“You fuckin’ piece of  _ shit _ ,” Knife Guy seethed, kicking him again and again to emphasize the words. “You were supposed to  _ help _ us! But you’re a  _ demon _ , too, aren’t you, you fuckin’  _ bastard _ !”

Mac tried to push himself up, but Knife Guy kicked out at his head, and the blond agent collapsed again with a shout. It was a glancing blow, thankfully, but it was enough to daze him. He rolled onto his back and was just in time to catch the patient’s foot when he lifted it to stomp on his head, and Mac’s arms strained with the effort to keep it at bay.

“I’m gonna send your pathetic demon ass back to hell you motherfucker,” Knife Guy snarled through his teeth, and Mac stared up at him with wide eyes. He thought for sure he was done for, but then, out of nowhere, he briefly saw a toaster, swung by its cord, slam into the side of Knife Guy’s head, knocking him back.

Mac stared, dumbfounded for a moment before he struggled to sit up. He watched as Benny went again to swing the toaster, but Knife Guy ducked and grabbed the cord, ripping it from Benny’s hands and tossing it away.

“Hey!” Benny shouted, scowling in annoyance. “I need that!”

Knife Guy didn’t reply; he simply charged the other patient, and Benny, taken by surprise, was plowed into the wall behind him, his head snapping back against the cinderblock with a sickening crack.

“Benny!” Mac’s eyes were wide with concern and he struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall for support. Now dazed, the large and imposing Benny was a much better match for Knife Guy, and as they began their intense struggle, Mac was horrified to realize that his unlikely friend might actually lose.

The blond agent had to do something. Looking around the hallway, his eyes fell on an IV stand, toppled over a few feet behind him, and he quickly shuffled over to it, stooping to pick it up and using it as a cane to make the return trip easier.

“Down!” he yelled once he was in range, and Benny ducked without hesitation as Mac swung the IV stand like a bat, hitting the side of Knife Guy’s head. The stand was light and hollow, but adrenaline had given him enough strength to make the hit count, and Knife Guy stumbled and fell into the wall. Benny popped up from his crouch and landed a solid right hook that finally knocked out the man’s lights, and that was when Mac realized that the lanky guy had had his head bashed in with the toaster. He did his best not to look.

“You okay?” the agent asked hesitantly.

“I’m fine, Casper,” Benny assured him, one hand covering the back of his head while he walked over and picked up his abandoned toaster. Mac swallowed hard. He knew Benny had heard their attackers’ rantings about him being a demon, and the file he’d read on the patient flitted through his mind. He couldn’t outrun the man, so he had to make sure that toaster wasn’t for him.

“Look, about what they said about...about me being a—”  
“Oh, I know you’re not a demon, Casper,” Benny assured him, walking back over to him with the toaster under one arm, his free hand adjusting the stuffed otter on his chest.

“You...you do?” Mac blinked. He honestly hadn’t expected that.

“Of course,” Benny assured him like it was obvious. “You were able to look at the toaster and even pick it up, for one, and on top of that Seymour,” he tickled the stuffed otter’s belly with one finger, “let you carry him around for a while, too. Wouldn’t be possible if you were a demon.”

“Right,” Mac agreed. “So...so we’re good?”

“Absolutely,” Benny promised. “You should go catch up with your friend.”

“Yeah,” the blond man nodded. “Yeah, I should...you gonna be okay here?”

“Always am,” the patient chuckled. Mac gave a nervous laugh in reply, and started limping down the hall using the IV pole as a sort of cane, but Benny stopped him.

“Hey, Casper!”

Mac jumped, but stopped somewhat impatiently, his heart pounding. “Yeah?”

Benny looked at him sadly for a second. “You...you know you’re gonna have to face facts eventually, right?”

“What facts?” Mac asked in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Benny’s expression just seemed to get sadder, but after a few moments, he shook his head.

“Never mind,” he said dismissively. “You’ll get there on your own eventually. Be careful.”

"Yeah," Mac said hesitantly. "Yeah, you too, Benny. See ya."

With this, he was allowed to hurriedly limp after Riley in peace.

Surprisingly, he managed to make it the last three turns unhindered, and the slightly bent IV pole was just starting to squeak complaints when he came around the last corner, the one he'd made both himself and Riley memorize—and discovered a blank concrete wall.

No windows. No doors. The form factor of the concrete was the same as everything else on the wall. The paint didn't even look new.

"What?" He didn't even realize it was out loud until it echoed in his earpiece, and then again, and again, each echo built into a chorus, like it was a character's voice in a video game, coming at the player through a dream.

"Riley!" he called, as loudly as he dared, and the same effect happened to it, in his ear. But there in the hallway, there was no reply.

Mac felt his stomach drop, and he quickly pulled up the map again, walking back his previous path.

It was all—correct. This was the hallway clearly marked as the Exit. And yet it clearly was not.

Mac stared blankly at the phone for a second, and then he started working what would have happened next. Riley would have come here, found the same dead end—and—

And then used the paper map he'd given her. Where he'd marked the path, what he'd thought was the  _ same  _ path—

Of course, the paper map could have been a plant, but that map had looked slightly different than the one in the phone. He'd chalked that up to form factor, one being more accurate than the other, but if not—

Mac shuffled as quickly as he was able back to the last intersection, scanning the walls at eyeball height. He'd long ago started ignoring smears of blood as just background, but there on the wall on his right, there was a very clearly daubed arrow. Still suspicious, Mac raised a shaking finger and dragged it through, and though he felt nothing, the blood was still soft enough to smudge.

Riley had figured it out, and marked the way.

He followed her directions, a straight arrow at the next intersection, and then another right, and Mac saw how the map had been modified. Murdoc had changed the electronic one to detour him just a couple narrow hallways too early, changed the rooms so he wouldn't know they were some kind of staff dorms. Just enough to slow him down, and if Benny hadn't stepped in, just enough to get him to corner himself with violent patients right on his ass.

Mac hurried as well as he could, turning a one-way corner that wasn't marked, and he nearly wept when he came to the glowing red exit sign. The door wasn't exactly marked 'The Gates of Salvation' but the key he'd given Riley was still in the lock, the chain swinging gently, and Mac was already weak with relief as he pushed it open and stepped out into the open air.

All of that relief vanished instantly as soon as he looked, and he felt the color drain from his face.

There were bodies in the staff parking lot. Two of them.

One of them was wearing a nursing uniform.

"Riley!" As if his brain simply forgot about his injuries, the blond man sprinted across the cracked pavement, sliding to his knees beside her with a grunt of pain. She was half on her left side, eyes open and panting, and there was blood pooling rapidly on the warm concrete beneath her.

The object of her study was only a few feet away; the 'priest' was slumped against an outer wall. Knife Guy's boning knife lay near his limp hand, but Mac could see immediately that he was no longer a threat to either of them; he was dead.

"Riley, hey, look at me," he urged, and she managed it, but just. He didn't dare roll her into recovery position; the blood was coming from a wound beneath her, no telling if it had hit her spine. Her breaths were once again coming in gasps, but these were quick and shallow—respiratory distress from a sudden drop in blood pressure.

The phone on his arm buzzed, and Mac ignored it, slipping his mostly numb right hand beneath her. He knew he'd found the wound when she whimpered and her eyes rolled. She was losing a lot of blood, the priest must have gotten her deep, hit a major vessel, or maybe her kidney—

"I'm sorry Riley, I'm sorry but I gotta do this—" He slipped his other arm under her, checking for any spinal issues while he put pressure on the single wound he'd found, and that was when he saw the face of the phone still strapped to his forearm. He expected some sarcastic  _ Objective: Don't Let Riley Die _ . To his legitimate surprise, there was a simple, big red button, flashing the label 'Phoenix'.

With his hands occupied, Mac tapped it with his nose. "Riley, hey, can you tell me what happened?"

"...s-stab-bed..." She gasped again as his searching fingers discovered just how deep that wound was. "C-c-cold—"

Hypovolemic shock.

"Mac?"

He barely registered that the voice was coming from the phone. "I'm here, Matty," he ground out, driving his fingers deeper in to the wound and hating how much pressure he had to use to fucking  _ feel  _ anything. Riley gave a shaky cry when Mac found a pulsing vessel and pinched it off. "I've got Riley, but she's—"

"I know," Matty cut him off. "We have visual through those glasses of yours; we've been following your progress. Murdoc gave us coordinates about ten minutes ago; I have a medevac on its way to you. We'll be meeting you at the hospital."

That was generous. He must have done it when the priest and his two guys got loose, expecting them to get cornered, not realizing Benny was going to charge in and interfere—

"What's the ETA on that medevac?" Mac tried not to sound panicked, but he knew he didn't quite succeed.

"Three minutes," Matty promised, trying to reassure him. "And I have a few teams on the ground headed your way to secure the rest of the building."

Good, because if another patient wandered out here, if he had to let go of that vessel—

Mac became aware of warmth soaking his slacks along his shins, warmer than the concrete, warm like the blood that was still dripping through his fingers. Like the sun on his back. They were out, they were  _ out  _ and she was dying in his hands.

"Hang on, Riley, don't go to sleep on me," he pleaded, but her rolling, glazed eyes were no longer fixed on anything, she was just barely conscious. Given the volume of the pool around them, the amount he was kneeling in, she'd lost almost three pints already. Her once-snow white uniform was at least half red.

The vessel wasn't pulsing against his fingers anymore.

Mac leaned over her, gently pressing into Riley's bruised and bleeding throat. Tachycardia was setting in as her heart struggled to pump with a third less blood than normal. It was fast and irregular, and her limbs and lips were paling as Mac watched.

"No," he told her, jostling her in an attempt to get her to open her eyes. "No, Riles, not now. They're coming, the helo's right here, you can hear it—listen—"

His internal clock was relentless; he experienced every second of those three minutes in dilated real time. Riley didn't open her eyes, didn't respond to the noise. Didn't respond when the motion in his peripheral vision stopped being the shadow of rotor blades and became two paramedics in their orange jumpsuits. It was a relatively small parking lot; the helo was close and there was no good way to communicate over the noise. Someone must have told them; maybe dispatch at Phoenix, because one of the guys came around to kneel next to Mac, eyes on him instead of the patient, and he gestured with a gloved hand.

Mac nodded, staying perfectly still while the two men angled Riley's body and he felt it, almost detachedly, as the paramedic inserted his fingers into the wound alongside Mac's, and pinched off the vessel just above where Mac was.

With his other hand, the medic gave Mac's shoulder a double tap—the Army signal for moving on, starting the next task, and Mac nodded to show that he understood, easing his hand away, trying not to tear the wound any more open than he already had. The other paramedic had just started fluids, before they even put her on the backboard.

A third man ran out to assist, and Mac staggered to his feet, waving him off and indicating Riley instead. He'd abandoned his IV stand and it took him a little while to make his way to the helicopter; he got there only a few strides ahead of the three man team surrounding Riley. The copilot was there to help haul him inside, and Mac stumbled over to the seat in the back, folding himself up to stay out of the way.

When he looked up to watch them loading Riley, the frame of the godforsaken glasses attracted his attention, and Mac ripped them off his face and flung them out into the parking lot. Within ten seconds Riley and the other medics were on board, and they were lifting off.

She coded four minutes into the flight.

Mac watched from his seat, helpless and useless as the medic at her shin lifted the bone drill away to allow defibrillation before setting it back into place, boring an entry point for intraosseous infusion because they couldn't get fluids into her fast enough any other way. He would have offered his own arm, his throat,  _ anything  _ if it could help, but he wasn't a suitable donor and there wasn't enough time to set up a transfusion even if he was.

They got her back after two shocks and a hit of adrenaline, and though Mac couldn't hear a damn thing, the spastic wobble on the monitor drew more than enough of a picture. As they were circling the helipad it looked like she was about to crash again, and when the skids touched down the medics worked like highly trained dancers, smoothly and efficiently transferring her off the helo without interrupting their work for a single second.

He didn't dare try to follow on his own, and it turned out they had no intention of letting him. As soon as they cleared the bay another pair of medics were hopping on to get him onto a gurney. He ended up in the roomy elevator with Riley for just a moment, enough for five bagged breaths, enough to see an involuntary tear shivering on her eyelashes as they worked on her, and then the elevator opened and she was rushed off.

Mac was not. He was taken two floors down and the moment he was rolled off the elevator he realized why.

Two Phoenix tac agents were waiting for him. He was wheeled into a patient room not far from where Agent Ramirez was still comatose.

After that Mac stopped really paying attention, falling into a kind of fugue state. Someone—maybe Simmons?—had already stopped by with assurances.

The hospital was secure. There were agents parked outside the OR. There were even more agents stationed in the hallway. Matty, Jack, and Bozer would be arriving soon. He was safe.

His words did absolutely nothing to make Mac feel better.

Simmons—or whoever it had been—had left once a doctor arrived to examine him. They were quick and efficient but as gentle as they could be. The stupid phone was finally removed from his arm, pulled carefully over his watch, which he was allowed to keep for the time being; the earwig—which had thankfully gone silent once he got into the helicopter—was plucked from his ear; and his hands, which were slowly regaining feeling, were washed, and it turned out that at least some of the blood had been his. The cuts on his knuckles were cleaned, but not covered; they would be doing an x-ray on it to see if he’d broken his hand. The cut on his chin was stitched up and covered. The scrapes on his chest were cleaned as well, and his pant legs were cut open to allow them to properly remove the glass from his right leg and examine his left knee and hip. He had a concussion, and the gash in the back of his head was stapled shut. It wasn’t that big; it only needed three. His lungs were in pretty bad shape again, but nothing he couldn’t come back from. By the time the doctor left, he’d gotten a tetanus booster and had an oxygen mask on his face, finally in a patient gown. They’d keep him overnight, but no more.

No dislocation. No major bleeding. He would need x-rays, of course—but he was fine, in the grand scheme of things.

It made Riley’s current state all the harder to swallow.

He was unsure how long he waited there, coughing occasionally, before Bozer burst into the room.

“Oh my God, Mac, are you okay?” his roommate demanded, and despite himself, Mac felt himself crack a small smile as he reached up and pulled down his oxygen mask.

“I’m good, Boze,” he promised, coughing a little. Then he sobered. “You hear any news on Riley?”

“Still in surgery,” Bozer supplied. “They won’t tell us much more. Matty and Jack are on their way up; I took the stairs.”

At the mention of Jack, Mac’s stomach lurched just slightly, and he put the mask back over his face. Bozer frowned in concern.

“Y’know, he really didn’t seem mad, Mac,” his best friend tried to reassure him.

“Looks can be deceiving,” the blond agent replied grimly, his voice muffled by the mask. Bozer’s frown deepened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment, the door opened, and Jack walked in, followed by Matty.

“Mac,” Matty said quickly to stop Jack from speaking. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ll be fine,” Mac assured her, pulling his mask back down. “They ah...they find anything at that hospital yet?”

“Plenty,” Matty scoffed. “But nothing groundbreaking yet. There’s a lot to go through, though; I’m sure there’s something there to find.”

“And what about the patients?” Mac pressed.

“We found a handful of people who were hired actors,” Webber explained, confirming what he already suspected. “I don’t have a final head count yet, but so far we’ve found over fifty other people. A lot were homeless, but some were reported missing from psychiatric institutes.”

“Let me guess,” he sighed. “Benny was one of those?”

“Correct,” Matty nodded. “He unfortunately didn’t quite take to the agents as well as he took to you; he had to be sedated.”

Mac frowned just slightly at that. He hoped the man who’d saved him was alright, but there was only so much he could do at the moment. He made a mental note to do some digging later.

“Did you find the guy who brought me to Murdoc?” Mac asked after a moment, certain that the car swap had been on camera.

“Yes,” his boss assured him. “He explained everything. Even gave us the limo’s plate.”

“Unfortunately, the limo was found exactly where he last saw it,” Jack chimed in acidically. Mac felt his stomach tighten at the rage he heard brewing in his partner’s voice. “The bastard switched cars.”

Of course he did.

“What happened once the guy left with his kids?” Bozer asked.

“I got in the limo and Murdoc was waiting for me,” Mac explained, letting his head rest on the pillow behind him. He coughed a few times, grimacing at the pain of it, and took a few breaths from the oxygen mask before he continued. “He made me drug myself. Gave me something to drink and let me know it was a sedative, but made me drink it myself.” He thought for a few seconds. “Except it wasn’t drugged, was it?”

“No,” Matty shook her head sympathetically. Mac hadn’t had the opportunity to think much of it before, but drinking a sedative wouldn’t have induced any effects as quickly as he’d felt them. “We processed the limo, and there was no trace of sedatives in the glass. We’re not sure where he drugged you, only that it wasn’t in the juice.”

Mac just nodded. Honestly, what did he expect at that point? He was drugged well before he ever got in that limo. He could never actually say no; whether he drank that juice or not, he would’ve ended up exactly where he did.

It was the illusion of choice. Nothing more.

The blond man broke into another coughing fit, and Bozer had to step forward and pull the oxygen mask back up over his nose and mouth, concern lining his features.

“We’ll let you rest up, Blondie,” Matty spoke up once he was breathing normally again. “You can debrief tomorrow.”

“No, Matty, I’m fi—”

“Nope,” Webber cut him off. “You rest. We’ve got it from here. Riley is getting the care she needs, so you need to take care of yourself too.”

Jack uttered a quiet scoff, and Mac bristled in response. Matty and Bozer glared at the other agent.

“Just rest up, man,” Bozer chimed in, shooting him a smile. “You did your part. You got Riley out of there.”

“We’ll let you get some sleep,” Matty rushed to add, heading for the door with Bozer right behind her. Jack stayed right where he was. “We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything about Riley.”

Bozer stepped out into the hall, but didn’t go far, and Matty turned back to glare at Jack.  
“Dalton,” she said sharply. “Let’s let Mac rest.”

It was an order and they knew it. Mac stared at his clearly-furious partner, his stomach twisting and churning unhappily, until the former Delta turned to follow the other two out into the hall.

However, when he got to the door, he pushed it closed and quickly shoved the nearby heavy recliner in front of it before anyone had the chance to open it again. Mac could see Bozer’s face at the door’s window, glaring furiously at Jack while it looked like he demanded the agent open the door. Jack ignored him, turning to Mac.

“Well, they really seem to want us to talk, Mac,” he stated slowly, his voice nearly a growl. Mac felt a chill shoot down his spine. “So you know what? Let’s fucking talk.”

"Jack, I'm so sorry," Mac told him sincerely. His partner looked ready to fight, and honestly, Mac was ready to oblige, but before any of that, the apology had to be said, even if it wasn't accepted.

It wasn't.

"Sorry doesn't  _ fucking _ cut it, Mac!" Jack snapped furiously. "You followed Murdoc's  _ fucking _ rules and Riley is  _ dying _ because of it!"

Mac pulled his mask down, fury flashing in his eyes. " _ You _ are the one who told me to go as soon as we got Murdoc's message!  _ You _ told me to follow his rules!"

"No, I told you to get Riley out of there!" Jack shouted, veins popping out of his neck as he took a step towards him. "I didn't tell you to dance around like his goddamn puppet! You drank the damn juice, you followed his rules to the letter, hell, you even enforced those rules on Riley, and for  _ what?! _ It didn't save her! Despite everything that's been going on between us, I  _ trusted _ you to get her back in one piece and you  _ failed _ !"

"And just what exactly would you have had me do?" Mac demanded, forcing back a cough and ignoring the sounds of the others trying to get into the room. "He would have hurt her if I went against him and you know it! We all know the fact that I got to Boze at the end of the last exam pisses him off—he wasn't going to let me get through on a technicality again! If I would've pushed him, Riley might not have made it until I got to her! As it is he changed the map because I cheated with the bomb—if not for me and Benny holding those guys off, she and I would have been cornered and neither one of us would have made it out of there!"

"Y'know what, I'm glad you brought up Benny, because what the fuck was that?!" Jack raged, taking yet another step towards him. "You stopped to save your little friend while Riley was getting stabbed in the parking lot! Riley was dying, and you were more concerned with some psycho you just met!"

"She's not dead, Jack, and she's not dying! Stop talking about her like she is!" Mac shot back, and was about to continue when his partner cut him off.

" _ You don't fucking know that! _ " the former Delta roared. Behind him, the others were having issues with the door; the top of the recliner was positioned right under the handle, preventing it from turning enough to release the latch. "And do  _ not  _ tell me how I can and can't talk about her! She's—they don't even have the bleeding under control yet! She was in this mess because of  _ you _ ! The absolute  _ least _ you could have done was fight back! But no—you were his good little soldier, weren't you. Face it, Mac, Murdoc won and you fucking  _ let _ him, just like you've let him win every time before! You had him one-on-one in that limo; if you'd had even half a spine, you would've taken him out right then! But no! You let him take you! You let him play his stupid games with you and you let him use Riley to do it!"

"Do you honestly think he wouldn't have had a contingency plan for if I tried anything like that?" Mac couldn't help the incredulity in his voice. "First off, I was already drugged long before I got in that limo, I just didn't know it; I never would have lasted long enough to do any significant damage. Second, even if I had, we had no idea where he was keeping her! It would have been all too easy for him to set something up that would kill her if he didn't check in—we never would have found her in time if I'd arrested him there!"

"See, that's your problem!" Jack took another step forward. He was looming over his partner, now, just a few feet away, hands balled into trembling fists at his sides. MacGyver's heart was racing. "You still think arresting him is the end game! How many times are we gonna have to go through that before you realize we're way past that point? If we lock that bastard up, he'll get out eventually, and we'll end up right back here! I'm not playing that game anymore!"

"If we kill him, we're just as bad as he is!"

"If we let him live, we're  _ worse _ than he is! If he lives, he gets to keep ruining people's lives—and not just ours! Unless I'm the only one who remembers that nurse and her family that he killed, or Kyser, or hell, even Ramirez, now! So y'know what? Here's how this is gonna go. When it's our turn and he comes for me, I'm gonna do what you wouldn't, what you  _ should've  _ done a long time ago, what you've been—what you've  _ always _ been—too weak to do! I'm gonna find that sick sonuvabitch and kill him once and for all."

"Jack, I can't let you do that—"

Mac was cut off as Jack jabbed a finger into his sore and bruised chest. 

"I don't give a  _ fuck _ what you have to say about it, MacGyver!" he snarled furiously. "That piece of shit is gonna die, and if you know what's good for you, you'll stay the  _ fuck _ outta my way about it!"

Mac felt rage flare in his chest as he knocked the man's hand away. "Don't  _ fucking _ touch me!"

Jack's rage matched his own, but Mac couldn't help but be genuinely surprised when his partner lunged at him. Whatever he was planning, though, he never got the chance; the agents outside had finally managed to wrestle the door open, and Simmons wrapped his arms around Jack's chest from behind and yanked him back, turning him the other direction, releasing him, and pushing him towards the door.

"That's  _ enough _ !" the tac agent snapped, scowling at Jack and putting a hand on his chest when the man whipped around and moved towards him again. "Outside, Dalton! Now!"

"Simmons, if you don't get your hand off me right the fuck now—"

"I said  _ now, _ Dalton!" Simmons shot right back, giving him a little shove that sent him stumbling back a couple steps. "Outside! Move!"

"Are you—"

"Don't make him say it again, Jack," Matty's icy voice chimed in from the hallway. Meanwhile, Bozer squeezed in around the recliner and bypassed Jack to get to Mac's bedside.

"You okay, man?" he asked quietly, his concerned eyes giving him a once-over. Mac nodded, aware that he was trembling slightly, and looked back over at Jack. His partner was staring Simmons down, but the tac agent wasn't budging. Eventually, Jack relented, shooting one final glare in Mac's direction before stalking out of the room. Simmons turned and shot him a sympathetic look, then pushed the recliner fully out of the way and stepped out in the hall, gently closing the door behind him.

"He didn't mean that," Bozer told him, trying to sound reassuring. "He didn't. He's just freaking out about Riley—that's all. You know he didn't mean it."

"Yes, he did," Mac responded, his voice rough from the yelling. "I know you're trying to make me feel better, Boze, but he did. You know he did."

Bozer didn't contradict him, his distress evident on his face. Mac took as deep of a breath as he could manage, coughing hard enough to make him wince. He swallowed back the lump in his throat, then looked over and forced a small smile.

"It's okay," he assured his best friend, the way Bozer often assured him that he was fine after waking up from a nightmare. Trying not to let him worry. "Really, it is; I saw this coming. I knew he’d blame me for this, whether I got her out of there or not."

"Mac—"

"It's fine," Mac interrupted, nodding slightly. "It really is. Listen, I really am tired; mind if I get some sleep?"

His best friend hesitated, clearly not believing his assurances for a moment, but he dipped his head anyway.

"Okay," he agreed quietly. "Okay; get some rest. I'll wake you when we hear something about Riley."

"Thanks," the blond man said sincerely, putting the oxygen mask back over his face and letting his eyes fall shut, telling himself that the tightness in his chest was because of his lungs. He heard Bozer linger for a second or two before he finally left the room.

And maybe it was the concussion, the stress, or the complete and total physical and mental exhaustion, but Mac was soon pulled mercifully into unconsciousness.


	9. Grading Day

It took a couple days for Riley to open her eyes, but when she did, she turned her head and was surprised to find a dog staring back at her. It was a gray-ish pitbull with a big square head, floppy ears, and a big smile. He was wearing a service dog vest, and he tilted his head when he saw her looking at him.

“Well, look who’s up,” a warm voice pulled her attention, and she found Mark Kyser in his wheelchair, a now-closed book on his lap. “Welcome back. Jack just stepped out for coffee; asked me and Gizmo to keep an eye on you. How’re you feeling?”

“Tired,” Riley grumbled in reply, her throat sore and scratchy. Her brain was struggling to recall what happened, why she was in the hospital. It came back to her in a detached sort of way, like a running list of events, and she tried to keep it that way, to not dwell on any one thing or try to pluck out any details. “How long have I been out?”

“Not quite forty-eight hours,” Kyser responded. “You lost a lot of blood, but the doctors say you should be alright.”

She nodded absently. “Is Mac okay?”

“He’ll make it,” the medic assured her.

Though she tried to keep them at bay, the details forced their way back into her mind, and she felt her throat tighten. Murdoc. The mental hospital. The patients. Brandon.

Ramirez.

The field analyst’s eyes flicked back to Kyser, who was scratching Gizmo behind the ears as the dog’s tail thumped happily. He and Ramirez were partners, were roommates; how could he not hate her for getting him killed?

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, and Kyser lifted his head in surprise at the emotion in her voice.

“For what?”

Riley tried to swallow some moisture back into her throat, fighting to keep her eyes open. God, she was still so tired. “Ricardo...I’m so sorry...”

“Oh, Riley,” sympathy flooded Kyser’s expression. “Ricardo is not dead. I mean, he’s not exactly doing cartwheels, either, but he’s not dead.”

She stared at him with wide eyes. “What?”

Kyser sighed, shifting slightly in his chair. “He’s in a coma,” he admitted at last. “When tac got to him, he was in the middle of a seizure. Whatever he was dosed with really did a number on him, wrecked his liver and kidneys, attacked his lungs...He’s on a ventilator and needed dialysis for a hot minute, there, but he’s alive. The doctors aren’t making any promises, but he’s been slowly—but steadily—improving and hasn’t had a setback yet, which they say is a good sign. I know it sounds kinda bleak, but believe me, Ricardo is one of the most stubborn bastards I’ve ever met; if anyone can come back from this, it’s him. He’ll be alright.”

This was part of the reason Mark Kyser was one of her favorite tac agents, and definitely her favorite tac medic, however out-of-commission he may be at the moment. He gave her the facts, uncensored, and didn’t coddle her, but still managed to make it seem positive by the end every time.

“Anyway, I figured he wouldn’t miss me while I sat with you,” he continued.

“Anything fun happen while I was out?” Riley asked, prompting a somewhat-sarcastic chuckle.

“Mostly just the absolute chaos of trying to process that nightmare of a crime scene,” Kyser shrugged. “Interviewing mentally-ill witnesses is always interesting, too. Getting that many people the varying degrees of medical attention they needed was also a challenge. Before you ask, no lead on Murdoc, yet.”

Riley frowned at that, feeling uneasy but in a vague sort of way—the drugs, most likely. She was on painkillers, at the very least.

“I’ll let your doctor know you’re awake,” Kyser volunteered after about thirty seconds of silence. “C’mon, Giz.”

The pitbull heeled perfectly at the command, and Kyser started making his way towards the door, but it opened before he could get there, revealing Jack holding a cup of coffee. He jolted then he saw Riley awake, rushing to her side.

“Hey, Riles,” he smiled at her, plopping down in a chair. Behind him, Kyser nodded at her and exited to get the doctor.

“Hey,” Riley forced a small smile in return. Then, because she realized Kyser didn’t give her a lot of details on it—probably because she was barely coherent when she asked—she looked up at him. “How’s Mac?”

At the sound of his partner’s name, Jack stiffened, trying not to let his smile falter too much.

“He’s fine,” the former Delta assured her. “Buncha bruises, couple busted ribs, concussion; no big deal.”

Riley blinked at him. “I saw him in there. He’s not fine. So how is he?”

“He’ll make a full recovery,” Jack promised, brushing a bit of hair back from her face.

“That’s not what I asked,” Riley glared in frustration. “How is he?”

Jack huffed just slightly before he forced himself calm. “Riley, he will be fine. You can ask him about it when he stops by. All that matters right now is how  _ you _ are. How’re you feeling?”

The analyst frowned. “What did you do?”

Jack gave her a long look. "You're not gonna drop this, are you."

She figured her expression spoke volumes.

"...I gave him a piece of my mind," Jack eventually admitted, choosing each word carefully. "He shoulda made a move against Murdoc before the exam ever started, and he didn't. He damn well shoulda handed you that phone when you asked for it, and he didn't. Murdoc didn't have to lift a damn finger; Mac did all the work for him."

For a second she wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. "You...you yelled at Mac for-wait. How...?" How on earth did Jack know that? "Did Mac tell you that?"

Jack took another deep breath, but couldn't seem to stop playing with her hair. "We saw everything, kiddo." She blinked at him in shock, and he slowly nodded. "Murdoc sent us a video link so we could tag along, first person style. Saw it in real time."

So he hadn't seen what happened before. With Brandon. Then with Murdoc—

Riley pushed herself up in the bed, or at least she tried to. She didn't get much further than pulling her head back and straightening her arms before the aches cut through the pain meds. It was overwhelming, like the worst hangover she'd ever had coupled with being rolled down a rocky cliff. There wasn't a piece of her that didn't hurt.

She only realized she'd squeezed her eyes shut when she felt the pain of scrunching up her face, and she relaxed it to find that Jack was still there, sitting on her bed, cupping her right cheek and holding her hand. "Easy, baby girl, take it easy. He ain't here. It's just us."

“You  _ didn’t _ see everything,” Riley insisted. Jack’s eyes sharpened at that, but before he could ask, she rushed to add, “You didn’t see  _ Mac _ . I did. I’d be dead if not for him. He’s not fine; he needs you right now, and you screamed at him for saving my life?”

“For getting you into this in the first place,” Jack corrected firmly. “Look, Riles, I’ve been there for that kid every step of the way for months; it’s not helping.”

“So yelling at him is going to help?”

“He had every opportunity to stop this before it could start,” the older man scowled, though his voice remained gentle. “He didn’t do that. And you ended up here because of it.”

“Jack—”

“Look, let’s not talk about it right now,” he soothed. “Just rest, okay?”

Riley wanted to argue, but she was so damn tired, and anyway, the doctor arrived shortly after, followed by Bozer and Matty.

Mac, notably, was absent.

“He’s on his way,” Bozer supplied when she looked to him. “He’s just not moving the fastest at the moment."

“I'll bet,” Riley scoffed hoarsely, and then the doctor broke in.

“Miss Davis,” he smiled warmly at her. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

* * *

Mac and Bozer were hanging out in Ramirez’s room when Kyser returned from Riley’s. The blond agent, in an effort to both stay nearby and stay away from Jack, had set up shop in their comatose colleague’s room, and Bozer had been sticking to him like glue ever since he was discharged, so he’d taken up the chair beside his roommate.

“Hey guys,” the wounded medic got their attention, and both heads came up from their phones. “Riley’s awake.”

Bozer jumped to his feet at this news, but Mac moved much more slowly, and he tried to tell himself it was just because of his injuries.

“You go on ahead,” Mac said to Bozer. “I’ll slow you down.”

“You sure you don’t need help?” Bozer asked in concern. Mac grabbed the cane he’d been provided and shook his head.

“It’s literally four rooms down, Boze,” he reminded his friend. “I will be just fine.”

Bozer hesitated, studying him carefully before he nodded. "If you're sure."

Mac confirmed that he was, and Bozer rushed out of the room.

"You want me to send Simmons in there to mediate?" Kyser asked jokingly. Mac chuckled.

"I can't rely on tac to protect me from my own partner forever," he shrugged, slowly limping towards the door. He was in sweat pants and a t-shirt to accommodate all the braces on his knee, ankle, and hand—plus he was still very much sore all over. Nothing was broken, but he did have a few sprains.

"I could lend you Gizmo," the medic offered, a little more sincerely. Mac considered it, smiling at the dog’s big grin, but shook his head.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured the man. “Thank you, though.”

“Well, yell if I should call security,” Kyser teased, and Mac laughed again, making his way out the door.

“Will do.”

Mac stepped out into the hallway, gently closing the door and nodding at the two agents stationed a bit down the hall. He started for Riley’s room, but stopped when his phone buzzed in his hand.

He had a new email.

The blond agent stared at the screen with a frown on his face. He knew what this was, without even opening it or even looking at the subject line.

Murdoc.

Taking a deep breath and leaning against the wall between two rooms, he opened the email. There was an attachment, a video file, but there was no chance in hell he was opening that without Phoenix vetting it first. Instead, he read the email.

_ Wonderful work, MacGyver. I think you’ll find the playthrough very entertaining—I know I did! It’s good to see that you’re learning, here. I was getting worried, to be honest, but I think we’re almost on the same page, now. You still took a shortcut, and I have to dock you for that, but this was easily your best exam yet. _

_ But I won’t keep you; I know you’re eager to know how you did. Again, you did cheat at one stage, which I have to take points for, but you otherwise followed all instructions, thought on your feet, paid attention, got all the keys, and, ultimately, Miss Davis survived. Even if your relationship with your partner didn’t. So sorry to hear the bromance is on the rocks. I’d say it was a shock, but, well, we both know that would be a lie. _

_ For this exam, Angus, I think you’ve earned yourself an A-. Very impressive indeed. _

_ Say hello to Riley for me! We really bonded while we waited for you to rest up after your trip up north. Oh, and do give my best to Ramirez, if he ever wakes up. Shame he got caught in the crossfire; he was never part of my plans. Funny how people keep getting dragged into this for you. _

_ Anyway, well done, Angus. I’ll be seeing you very soon for your final exam. I expect you’ll study hard. _

Mac read it twice, then used his thumb to kill the screen, and let the phone hang heavy at his side. His head rolled along the wall to look at the door two down from him, closed, now, containing his team. His boss.

His partner.

Riley.

After a breath or two, he rolled his skull wearily back to center, and his left hand tightened slightly around the curved head of the cane, as if preparing to use it, preparing to walk. He was still leaning there staring at nothing, ten minutes later, when Bozer came out to find him. He knew what his friend would ask before he even opened his mouth.

“Are you okay?”

And the answer was no.

No, he really wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! That concludes exam 3! Up next, the final. I hope you guys are having even half as much fun as we are. As always, thank you to Haven126 for her undying support and writing skills.
> 
> The final will take much more time to be posted than the other parts, just as a fair warning. Unfortunately, you guys are now all caught up with what's been posted elsewhere, so I can't just dump everything in a few days like before. Hang in there! We will write as fast as we can.


End file.
